The Tal Twins' Tale
by ChuckyDoll
Summary: Ariela and Hila Tal, two Jewish sisters, travel from North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula to see their cousins. However, La Purga De Las Personas Inferiores, ruled into law by King Miguel and Queen Edite, drives the twins to the Northern Islands. There, they watch as the Communities destroyed by Jonas's memories rebuild themselves despite hardship.
1. Chapter 1

**Part 1**

Ariela

We're all tired. My family spent today trying to find a way to cross the border from Alustaa Maghreb to Shmali-Agharabi Maghreb. My father, Ariel Tal, knew a guy who managed to cross several times without alerting authorities and apparently this guy also somehow managed to show my father how to cross without getting detected. He told this to my mother, Carmela Cohen-Tal. I only knew about my father telling my mother because my half-sister, Tziporah Cohen, came into my room and told my twin sister and I about the plan to cross. I knew we had to go to Shmali-Agharabi Maghreb at some point. My mother had told me that we were going to a port city located there, and from that point on, we would travel to Espanya, where some of her family lived.

The place we had stayed in while we were in Alustaa Maghreb didn't really belong to us. We were paying a motel owner so we could use two small bedrooms. My parents shared one and Tziporah, my twin sister and I shared another. Tziporah had one bed and we had the other one. I didn't mind sharing a bed with my sister. If we were separated for too long, things would feel weird anyway.

"Hila," Tziporah had said to my sister. "Ariela," she had referred to me. "We're crossing the border tomorrow. Abba knows where; his friend told him."

Abba was how we said 'father' in our language. Not many speak it in public, but we belong to a rather tight-knit community. We can recognize one of our own at first glance. Not many understand this.

"How does Ima feel about this?" Hila had asked.

"Our mother agrees with him," Tziporah had replied. "Not to mention there aren't many other options. Besides, Ima hasn't stopped talking about visiting her family in Espanya."

"What about the authorities at the borders?" Hila had retorted.

Tziporah had sighed. "I don't know. I'm not even sure Abba knows. Let's just pray that we get there safe."

Tziporah and Hila face east, the direction of a nation that I know is now called Falasteen. It used to be named something else, but I can't remember, and I don't bother to ask Hila. She knows several prayers and almost all of our dietary restrictions surrounding our faith. She'd be embarrassed if I forgot the name of our former homeland. No, I think to myself, she'd think I had gone insane.

I think Tziporah and Hila's prayers had worked, for we managed to get across the river border without getting caught. Sure, there were a few close calls, but I think the sheer strength of Hila's prayer had helped prevent us from getting into trouble. I know that if I was the one who prayed, with my general skepticism and my incredibly foolish tendency to forget a name of a land so central to our beliefs, my prayer would have gone ignored and we would have been in the hands of border patrol, enduring Hashem-knows-what.

So much strength in Hila's prayer and she's only eleven.

My mind snaps back to the present moment. We are in the home of a man I do not know well, but we were easily able to identify as one of our own. He speaks our tongue fluently. His name was Menashe Assaraf.

"Shalom," he had greeted us when he noticed us trying to find an inn to stay in.

Menashe was a short man with graying hair and squinty eyes. His skin was dark like ours and his fingers were practically bones. There were brown spots covering his arms and a few on his face. When he greeted us, I couldn't help but stare at his wrinkles. I wondered how old he was, but I didn't want to ask.

Now we are sitting together at a large table with a fine cloth spread over it. I notice that its embroidered and run my fingers over the beads sewn into the edges. Almost everyone is finished with their food and my father is chatting with Menashe about how terribly prejudiced the border patrol is.

"Ha!" Menashe says, almost spitting out his food. "Wear a damn kippa and take one step toward the border, they take you Hashem-knows-where! That friend of yours must have been a genius!"

My father shrugs. "This friend of mine got it from his friend who got it from his friend who got it from his friend."

Menashe smirks. "Us Jews. What would we do without each other?"

I playfully kick Hila's foot under the table, much to Tziporah's annoyance, and she flashes us both a stern look. My mother is too busy listening on the conversation between two men for her to notice my antics. I immediately register what Tziporah is trying to tell me and kick my feet back under my seat. Hila looks mildly annoyed too; she doesn't have a playful smirk on her face.

I know what comes next; the prayer after the meal. I heard people of this other faith do it before, but I don't know the name of it. I know Hila would know and I make a mental note to ask her.

I hear Menashe chant. "Chaverai Nevarech!"

Hila and Tziporah chant the prayer flawlessly. I screw up the pronunciation of a few words and worry that I might have accidentally said a long lost slur, so I repeat the word correctly and hurriedly chant the subsequent words. _Those_ words I mess up, so I keep myself in a cycle of error and correction, thus lagging behind the rest of my family in prayer. I know my father must be trying to keep himself from laughing. Hila smirks too, but quickly hides it from Tziporah's gaze.

Tziporah, Hila and our mother help Menashe with the dishes. I retreat to the small room Hila and I were given and think about where it was exactly that we were going to go. Our mother told me that we were going to a port in Beni Ansar. From there, we were going to Espanya, but I don't know which city. I don't know much about Espanya nor do I know whether or not I'm excited to visit the place. All I know is that the language there has a different alphabet that doesn't even closely resemble the letters of the languages I know. Our mother showed me it once and I immediately didn't like it. The letters were too blocky.

I hear Hila enter the room, but I don't look at her. I know she's annoyed with me not helping her and Tziporah with Menashe's dishes. She lets out a sigh and cracks her neck before she lies down next to me. Hila places her hand on my arm, right where my bicep is, and kisses my cheek before she places her head against my shoulder.

"I wonder what is there in Espanya," she mumbles. "I hope the family is nice. I'm curious about the culture. I heard Ima speak the language. It's really pretty."

I groan a bit. "You're fascinated by every language, Hila."

"And you're fascinated by nothing."

I face away from her and pretend to sleep. Sometimes, her condescension irritates me in a way that I didn't understand. I occasionally think that Hila bothers me this way on purpose just because she enjoys it. Determined not to let her get to me, I refuse to respond to anything she says that night. Hila catches on quickly and simply gives me a quick hug before she turns away too and falls asleep.

I stay awake for a little while longer, gazing at the details of the room. I know that we won't be staying here for long, so I take the time to remember as much about this room as I can. The walls were some shade of orange and there are cracks all over one of them. On the wall opposite of me, there was a faint picture of somebody dressed in heavily embroidered clothing. I didn't really care who she was, but I found the detail interesting. Someone must have had a lot of free time on their hands to paint that.

I face Hila, who is breathing very slowly, and give her a quick hug before I hurriedly turn around so she doesn't see my face. I feel her shift a little bit. I hear her sigh deeply and, though I can't see her, I can tell that she is smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

Hila

I hear Ima and Abba outside our room talking about how long it will take to get to Beni Ansar. Walking there would take about a week, or so I heard Ima say, but public transportation would shorten that time to a few hours. The question remained whether or not we had enough money to pay for a ride to the port. We needed money to pay the ferry once we got there, not to mention leftover money for any food we might need.

"Carmela," I hear Abba say. "If we walk there, we'll spend whatever money we supposedly save to pay for food for the girls!"

Beside me, Ariela tosses around. I hear her groan at the increasing noise outside our room. She barely pushes her head above the small pillow and squints when she looks at me. I rub her back and she lets her head fall. Ariela goes back to sleep while I listen in on the conversation.

"Perhaps we can sell something," Abba says calmly.

"Like what?" Ima asks. "We don't have much, Ariel. We have a few measly clothes and one prayer book."

I hear Abba sigh before their voices and the sound of footsteps grow faint. My attention goes back to Ariela, who is now half-awake, and I take some of her messy hair away from her face. She flashes a half grin and I glance at the door before I get up to go to the kitchen.

Abba and Ima are sitting together at the table where we ate dinner last night. Menashe takes out some pita bread from the cabinet, cuts up a fresh pomegranate and serves them side-by-side on clean plates. I absentmindedly lick my lips. Pomegranates are one of my favorite foods.

Ima looks at me and smiles. "Is Ariela awake?"

"Where's Tziporah?" I ask.

"In her room, packing her things," Ima replies. "See if Ariela is awake. She needs to eat breakfast."

I roll my eyes. Ariela has a tendency to sleep in and today is no exception. I walk over to our shared room and push the door open slightly. Ariela pushes herself up, still groggy. I can see she has made the bed a mess.

"We're eating breakfast," I tell her. "Get up."

Reluctantly, she stands up and looks at me, as if blaming me for her shortage of sleep. Almost immediately, she walks past me, purposely bumping into my shoulder, and makes her way to the kitchen to get her breakfast. I don't blame Ariela for this behavior. She is quite cranky when she's tired.

Tziporah comes out of another room and sits down, accepting a plate from Menashe. Ima and Abba are looking at each other. I know they're concerned with our current financial situation. There was the money needed to get to the port, the money to pay for the ferry, and the money needed to get from the Espanya port city to wherever Ima's family lived, not to mention how we were going to pay for food. Knowing Ariela, she would consume most of it.

Already, Ariela is wolfing down her breakfast. Menashe giggles and the rest of our family smiles a little bit. Ariela becomes self-conscious and eats her food more slowly, glancing around to see who is watching her. I playfully stare at her and she snarls.

"So, about your issues with your planned travel," Menashe says while chewing on pita bread. "I can give you a little money to pay for public transportation."

Abba looks down. "Menashe, I don't think we can–"

"Ariel," Ima interrupts. "We need the money."

Abba sighs. "I don't just want to take from–"

"It's all right, I insist," Menashe replies. "Take the money. You need it more than I do."

And that's how we got money for public transportation.

* * *

We left Menashe's home early afternoon. Abba seemed sad to say goodbye to the man, but Ima seemed to look forward to getting to the port sooner. Ima, Abba, and Tziporah looked over our belongings when we traveled to the nearest station for the shuttle. It wasn't a particularly long walk to the station, which wasn't really so much of a station as it was a tall sign indicating that the shuttle would stop there.

We are here, standing by that sign and watching as a crowd congregates around it. An Amazigh family waits beside us. Among them, an aging man says hello to Abba, who nods back respectfully. I notice his young daughter playing with her beaded necklace before I turn my attention to Ariela, who is leaning on the sign. She sighs, probably wondering when the shuttle was going to get here.

The shuttle finally arrives. It is an old machine with a somewhat rusted exterior and the wheels screech every time the shuttle brakes. A small puff of smoke comes out from the end of it. The shuttle driver gets up from her seat and manually opens the doors. The doors squeak a little, getting Ariela's attention, and our family boards the shuttle first, paying the driver. The driver smiles at us and we sit closer to the front. Ima sits with Abba, I sit with Tziporah and Ariela sits alone. She stretches her legs and takes up two seats.

The Amazigh family sits near us, but we don't really pay attention to them. Others board the shuttle, filling in the seats, and Ariela watches all of them. I assume that it's because she's making sure she doesn't have to give up her extra seat. I secretly wish that someone needs it, but the driver shuts the doors before anyone else boards. I take the time to think about some things while Ariela takes the time to sleep.

I think about Ima's family in Espanya, I think about the two Maghreb nations, and I think about Falasteen. I know it borders a place our people called Mitzrayim and that, in comparison to the nations around it, it is pretty small. Sometime ago, I learned that Falasteen was once Yisrael, that we consider it our homeland, and that for a short period of time, it was in our possession. However, during the Transformation, the ancestors of those who now rule Falasteen had rebelled and our people were exiled. Every time we celebrate our holiday concerning repentance, I think about this. I think every one of us thinks about this when celebrating that holiday.

The shuttle jolts forward and brakes, shaking everyone. I see one woman's basket fall off her lap. A man and his daughter drop their books accidentally and scramble to pick them up. I look around and see a few people getting off the shuttle before others board it. Once again, people try to find seats and the door closes with a loud _thud_.

I think of a painting that I saw once being brought into a government building. I had been going with my sister to a flea market to sell some necklaces Ima had when we passed by the building. One man and one woman were holding up a framed painting, showing it to someone they knew. I saw that the painting was of a garden planted in Bil'in, a village in what is now Falasteen. The flowers in the garden were planted in the empty containers of what were known as tear gas grenades. That symbol of resistance was implanted in everyone's conscious now; I doubt I will encounter even one person that would not know what that image represented.

I lean a little bit on Tziporah and look at her features. She looks less like Ima than Ariela and I do, but I have no way of knowing if she looks more like Ima or like her Abba. All I know of him is that his name was Daniel Cohen and that he died before Ariela and I were born. I have no idea what he died of; all I know is that Tziporah misses him.

The shuttle gets uncomfortably warm. I don't know how Ariela is sleeping through the ride. The shuttle is constantly rocking from the uneven road and everyone is talking to one another rather loudly. All of the sudden, the shuttle becomes so uneven that Ariela falls off from her two seats, waking her up.

"Ugh, why?" she groans as she dusts herself off and gets up.

Ariela sits back down again, taking up two seats so she can easily fall asleep again. It takes some time before she is successful at it and soon enough, I feel the need to sleep too. I somehow magically become able to take a nap on that overheated, unsteady shuttle.

Just after I wake up, we arrive at the Nador Port of Beni Ansar.


	3. Chapter 3

Ariela

We get off the shuttle quickly and our father almost forgets the Siddur he was carrying. He quickly puts it in his small bag and we look for the part of the port that our ferry would be. I see that there is a long line to buy tickets for that ride to Espanya and try to figure out a way to cut in line without anyone noticing. I gag on the scent of fish, rotting trash, and body odor, and when I see a poor beggar wandering around the port, I get an idea.

"Hila," I ask my sister. "You see the line where we have to buy tickets?"

She nods. Her eyes immediately dart to the sign where it says "Destination: Port of Almeria, Espanya". She tries to figure out exactly what it is that I plan to do when our father comes up behind us, lamenting about the long line.

"Abba," I tell him. "I have an idea. Give me the money."

He laughs. "Are you crazy? Do you think I would trust you with it?"

Tziporah and our mom, standing beside him, stare at me as if I have grown another head. Hila starts to become anxious, knowing that I have some plan up my sleeve and already not approving of it. She doesn't say anything, though; she only watches what happens between me and our dad, paying attention to even the most subtle parts of our body language.

"Just trust me, Abba," I say one more time, putting on a pouty face to convince him.

He finally gives me some money, but not all, and I hide it away in a small pocket I had Tziporah sew into my old pair of pants. I remove my shoes, wrinkling my nose at whatever gets stuck to my feet, and I proceed to the line. I don't get _in_ line, however. Instead, I go to some wealthy looking person in the middle and hold out my hands, bending forward a little to look like I'm begging.

"The fuck you want?" the man asks, scoffing at me.

I sniffle, as if I'm about to cry, and I look down mournfully. The man's girlfriend scolds him before throwing a few coins at my feet. I pick them up the way I've seen beggars pick up coins and I must have put on a convincing performance. A middle aged woman, ahead in line, calls me over. She must have felt sympathetic toward me.

"What's your name, dear?" she asks.

"Ariela," I reply, immediately wondering why I didn't resort to using an alias.

"Oh, you poor girl," the woman sighs. "Do you have family?"

I nod and look at my parents and sisters, who luckily look poor enough to be mistaken for beggars at this point, and I feel glad that this was the scheme I picked. Not everything had to be a complete lie, which made everything all the more effective. I look back at the woman and at how far I am in line and I decide I could stick with this woman until I buy tickets. She gives me a little bit of money and smiles.

"I hope you aren't resorting to worse means of making money, dear," she tells me.

I can't help but chuckle a bit. What does this woman think I do? Prostitute myself? I'm only eleven, for Hashem's sake.

"Where do you plan on going, dear?" she asks.

"I don't know," I half-lie. "I heard things were better in Espanya, so I thought maybe if I saved up enough money, I could get my family there."

She tilts her head with concern and I see her missing teeth through her smile. I admire her head covering for a short time. It's similar to what my mother wears when we have more money to buy things, except it has pretty embroidery and hangs somewhat loosely. My mother would normally tie the covering in the back to make sure it doesn't get loose. This woman, however, seems like she had given up on keeping her clothes tidy. Her clothes, despite appearing to be expensive, have several stains on it.

She and I look ahead, noticing that the line has moved up more than we expected it to, and I follow her forward. We stop after we have moved about a third of a meter and I look back and see my family. They also have moved away from their original spot. Now, they stand a short distance away from me, watching what I do with the middle-aged woman.

"I hear the prince of Shmali-Agharabi Maghreb is going to marry soon," the middle-aged woman says. "I'm sure I knew his name before, but it's slipping my mind. You see, I'm from Alustaa Maghreb, so I don't know much about this country as I should."

That quickly reminds me that I never asked this lady her name.

"Prince Yassine Harrak," I reply.

"Oh, Yassine Harrak," she says. "I have a feeling I'm going to forget that later."

It takes only about ten minutes before we are at the front of the line. I'm not sure how anyone noticed how I cut in front of all of them, but my best guess was that they assumed I was too poor to buy tickets. I see my twin running to my side. One man is leering at her and I snarl, knowing I cannot do much about it.

"Ariela," she says to me quietly. "Here is some more money."

"Did Abba make all of this begging?" I ask her, winking to make sure she understood me.

Hila nods and the woman stares at her, comparing her to me, and realizes that we are twins. I am almost amused by how much this confuses her. She shakes her head and smiles at Hila, holding a few coins in her hand.

"What's your name, dear?" she asks.

"Hila," she replies. "And you?"

"Jumana," the woman answers. "Do you have more money than that? If not, I could help pay for your tickets. You'll need some money while on the ferry; some of these people have a habit of snatching your belongings when you're not looking."

"We'll need five tickets," I reply quickly before Hila could object. "I don't know how much they cost, so I'm not sure I have enough."

I resist the urge to smile smugly when I think of how much Hila is going to hate me for partially scamming this old woman. Our people have had a nasty reputation for doing this, which is why Hila objects to my scheme so much, but I don't think much about that. I think that everyone, for the most part, has the right to do what is necessary to keep yourself afloat.

"Don't worry, dear," Jumana reassures us. "Whatever you can't pay, I can cover. I've got more than enough."

_Then why don't you board a better ride than this?_ Hila was somehow able to tell that I was about to ask her this sarcastically, so she grabbed my arm before I could do so. I playfully shake it off and she holds my hand. I only just realized how sweaty her hands are.

"Next!" a man behind the ticket booth shouts.

Jumana, Hila and I step forward and the man eyes Hila and I suspiciously. She looks over at our parents and at Tziporah, who are waiting close by where everyone who had had tickets entered the boat. Some old woman is arguing with my father. I look at Jumana, who is fumbling around with her purse in order to find the amount of money she needed for the ticket. She reads to me the cost of them; she probably assumed I couldn't read. I count my coins out loud and I realize I am three coins short.

"Uhh," I mutter and Jumana quickly sees my problem.

Jumana slips me three coins discreetly and I grin. Hila looks back at those behind us and notices their impatience. She whispers her concerns to me. I hope I'm not stuck on the ferry with all of _them_.

"One for me," Jumana tells the man and receives her ticket.

She then turns to us. "Girls?"

I step forward, ignoring the possibly angry people in back of us, and I hold out my money to the man. He glances at it before he gazes at my sister and I. I guess that he is wondering where I got the money from.

"You made all of that from begging?" he asks suspiciously.

"I get donations," I reply in a sarcastic manner.

The man licks his teeth and scratches his moustache. His teeth have yellowed considerably and his moustache still has a bit of food in it. I start to wonder what in the world this man has eaten in order to have the fat belly that he does. He looks at the amount of tickets he has left in his pile. I counted five of them and realize that I am the last buyer for this ride.

"It's probably dirty money," he mutters, implying something rather nasty.

"I'm eleven years old, what do you think I _do_?" I reply. "Anyway, I need five tickets."

The man smiles and takes my money before he gives me the last of his tickets. I see him smirk as he puts up a sign saying, "Sold Out," and I run with Hila to our family. Jumana is standing by them, conversing with my mother, and I start to hope that nothing goes wrong here. Hopefully, my mother hasn't told her we aren't really beggars.

"So you got them, huh?" Tziporah asks me.

"Through dishonest means," Hila replies quietly enough so Jumana doesn't hear her. I nudge her playfully and look at my dad, who seems to be impressed with what I have managed to do. I pass around the tickets and we board the ferry, showing the gatekeeper our passes before we find a place to rest.

Jumana is still talking with my mother and I see they have become quite animated. I feel a sense of relief knowing that they are getting along. Soon enough, the ferry detaches itself from the dock and I watch as the port seems to shrink in front of me. I smirk as those who had been behind me in line now begrudgingly wait for the next opportunity to leave the port. Hila brushes up to my side and I had only then realized that she had left my side at all.

"You know that woman, Jumana?" Hila asks me in our native language.

"Yeah," I reply. "Why?"

Hila looks down over the rail at the sea water splashing against the sides of the boat. "It turns out she knows Ima's family through her husband back in Espanya. I was listening to her conversation with Ima. Jumana is Moslem, but she ran away from her family and married a Jewish man. Isn't that weird?"

"What else did you hear?" I ask.

Hila pauses before she turns her head to listen to someone else's conversation. I don't pay attention to what she is hearing. Instead, I stare at some man who seems to have quite a bit of money. He is leering at Tziporah, who politely tells him to screw himself. He moves on and looks around before finally looking at Hila. I take a mental note to keep on the lookout for him when Hila finally responds to my question.

"Do you know who is the ruling family in Espanya?" Hila asks me.

"No," I reply. "Why would I know that?"

"Ima told me a little bit about this last week. The King and Queen, there, they are called the Rey and Reina, they have a daughter, I think. So, she is called a Princesa, and her name is Isilda. As far as I have heard from someone else's conversation, she is eligible to marry."

I immediately recall Jumana saying that Prince Yassine is looking for a bride. Based on what Hila told me, I can assume that Yassine is considering marrying Isilda. What political ramifications that has, I have no idea, but I know it would mean something major for both Shmali-Agharabi Maghreb and Espanya.

"Do you know how long this ferry ride will be?" I ask Hila.

"I don't know, but I can guess more than five hours."

I try to figure out a way to spend my time on the ferry and look around, seeing what sort of people would want to go to Espanya. Most of them have more money than our family. There are even a few who look too wealthy to be spending their time with people like us and I wonder what they are even doing here. Perhaps they lost money but were once wealthy. All I know is that I immediately feel envy for all of them. My family doesn't consist of beggars, but I'd do anything for even half the financial stability that these people have.

I go to buy a snack from the ferry's kitchen when I notice the wealthy man staring at me. I hurriedly pay the woman who had made the food and leave the small room quickly to avoid him, bumping into a few people on the way. My food partially spills on a young woman's skirt and I see that she is really angry with me, so I run off to the main deck.

I later go to find Tziporah and tell her about the creepy man. She was sitting on a bench attached to the railing and to the floor, adjusting a shawl she was wearing. My parents must have gone to the bathroom or bought food, as far as I assumed, and I take the opportunity to talk with her in relative private.

"Did you see the wealthy man?" I ask her. "He had this long coat and a hat, and he kept staring at a bunch of young girls. It scared me a little bit."

Tziporah nodded. "He looked at me too. I don't know who he was, but he smelled funny. He kept asking me if I wanted to trade, as if he thought I was some sort of prostitute. I told him to go screw himself, but to be honest, I'm still scared of that man. Something unnatural about him."

Just then, I saw Hila come out from behind one of the doors leading to the inside. She looked around frantically and saw me, trotting towards me. Behind her, I saw the wealthy man that I told Tziporah about. My older sister and I looked at each other and at him before I received Hila in my arms.

"That man! What's wrong with him?" she asked me just as I let her go.

I started to wonder how long we had until we could get off the boat. We had been on here a couple of hours already. I hoped it wouldn't be much longer until we were no longer confined to the same space as that man. There were only so many ways to avoid him.

The man approached us with a creepy grin. "Hello, ladies."

"Fuck you," Tziporah spat at him. "You leer at us like we're prostitutes for sale and all of the sudden, you call us ladies?"

"I just wanted to make a trade with one of you," he said oddly politely.

I stare him down and notice he has several knives in holders attached to his belt. He looks down at them as well and chuckles, pulling one out for me to look at.

"You seem ready to make a trade," he says with a strange raspy voice. "It won't cost much, I promise."

I chuckle and hold my twin's hand, ready to walk off. "I don't trust you."

As soon as Hila and I are out of his field of vision, we run to the other side of the deck, ready to find our parents and tell them about the creepy, wealthy man. A woman bumps directly into us, apologizing in a foreign language before trotting away, and we look around for our mother and father rather frantically. We both know that they can't fully protect us from the strange man, but we needed a sense of security, so we both cling to each other tightly. Finally, Hila spots them carrying a snack in each hand.

"Ima," she calls out.

We both run to them and I wonder where Tziporah is, hoping that she managed to escape the creepy man. Our dad seems genuinely confused, but our mom dismisses our behavior as normal. I look at the snack in my mom's hand, feeling too uneasy to eat it, and I look at her.

"There's this strange man on the ferry," I tell our mom. "He keeps watching Tziporah and us and he keeps asking us for a trade. Something is off about him."

Our parents look at each other and at us. Our dad takes a bite out of a small sandwich and scratches his chin. Mom just scans her environment to see if she can identify the man we were talking about, to no avail. He is nowhere to be seen.

"Where is Tziporah?" she asks.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tziporah walk toward us, clearly irritated with everything. She doesn't seem nearly as afraid of the man as Hila and I are. How she dealt with him, we have yet to find out.

"That man!" she says, exasperated. "What the fuck does he want?"

Suddenly, I remember the knives and wonder what other sort of wealth he has on him. As Tziporah rants about the man angrily, I look around and try to figure out where the man might be. Soon enough, I slip away before Hila can say anything about it.


	4. Chapter 4

Hila

I sit with Tziporah, unaware for a long time that Ariela had left my side. She talks to me about the odd, creepy man, half angry and half afraid. I sit and listen. That man made me feel afraid too and I start hoping for the end of this ferry ride so our family can get as far away from him as possible.

"He kept asking for a trade," she said. "He said, 'I'll give you anything you want, dear.' He just kept saying, 'I'll trade something for anything you want.' He offered me a husband, like I'd want him!"

"What else did he say?" I ask him.

Tziporah shook her head. "Just weird things. It was like he was threatening me if I didn't make some sort of trade."

I feel puzzled. "Did you do anything?"

Tziporah shook her head. "No. I just walked away. He told me my refusal was ill-advised." She then sighed. "Enough of that now. Where's that woman, Jumana?"

It turns out Jumana is talking with Ima and Abba. Ima seems particularly interested in whatever Jumana is saying. I'm not surprised. A story of a Moslem woman marrying a Jewish man is rare enough for anyone to be interested. I can't help but listen in on their conversation.

"What is your husband's name again?" Ima asks.

"Shimon Ben-Ari," Jumana replies. "We met in Fransa, which shares Espanya's eastern border."

There's a cold breeze and Tziporah wraps her shawl around me, despite being cold herself. I look around a little bit, wondering where Ariela went, but I don't bother looking for her. She's probably messing around with other people on this ferry. I'd rather not take responsibility for whatever problem she causes, so I stay here, listening to Jumana.

"It was sometime after leaving the area near Falasteen. You see, I grew up in Alustaa Maghreb, but I have family spread out from the Maghreb region to the Arabian Peninsula bordering Falasteen. I've also traveled quite a bit. I left Falasteen and traveled through what we call Ard Kharaba."

I can't be sure if I remember this correctly, but Ard Kharaba must have been called something like Yoor-up before the Transformation. I know Espanya is part of Ard Kharaba. I've never been to Ard Kharaba before, but I know it was once powerful before the Transformation. Another nation on the other side of the ocean was once powerful before the Transformation as well and it supported Falasteen before the well-known rebellion. The fall of those powerful nations was part of the Transformation and it allowed weaker nations to build up in strength. Now that I heard Jumana talking about Ard Kharaba, I become fascinated. I can't help but imagine it as a place full of ruins.

"It's a strange place, Carmela," Jumana tells Ima. "There are flourishing small villages, but all the major cities are empty. There are odd structures of all sorts, architecture that doesn't exist in Maghreb."

Ima chuckles. "Tell me more about how you met Shimon."

She clears her throat. "We were in Fransa. He had come from Espanya and I had just left Falasteen. It was strange, really, I don't know why I chose him. All I heard about the Jews was what from my family told me about pertaining to the rebellion that formed Falasteen."

Abba's eyebrows crinkle. I see him shudder when Jumana mentioned Falasteen that way. We all know what Jumana must have heard about us; the people that took that land, made room for ourselves, pushed those already there to confined parts of the land, and would let very few others in. Within our own community, there are several conflicting opinions about this issue, but only a few ideas about us exist outside it. What motivated Jumana to change her mind, I have no idea.

"I sent a letter to my family about him," she says. " I didn't tell him he was one of you at first. Imagine the reaction."

Ima laughs. "Where do you live now?"

"We both live in Espanya, but I was here shortly for a family visit," Jumana explains. "I don't bring Shimon along. You were traveling to Espanya to visit family?"

Abba nods and Ima replies. "My sister Nava is married to a man named Matan Ben-Alhazzan. They live in Madrid, as far as I can remember. We haven't visited in a long time and I don't know if they moved, though I highly doubt it."

"Ben-Alhazzan," Jumana says. "That's how I know part of your family. My husband is good friends with the Ben-Alhazzans."

I decide to slip away in order to search for Ariela. The ship wasn't particularly large, so it doesn't take me long to search every corner of it. I don't have to anyway; I see Ariela running towards me with a huge grin on her face. I start to worry about what she did while she was gone.

"Ariela?" I whisper once she's at my side. "What did you do?"

She shrugs. "Not much. I went to look at that creepy man. He's been asking everyone to trade with him. It doesn't make sense because he doesn't seem poor."

She and I walk back to where our parents sat. "Everyone complained that he stinks. Maybe he was once wealthy but lost all his money."

I hum a little bit. She holds my hand and I look at her bag, which seemed fuller than it did before. My first thought was that she bought more food and stored it there, but then my eyes detect a faint outline of what could possibly be a knife.

"Ariela," I whisper. "What's in your bag?"

"What do you mean?" she asks.

Now I know she's hiding something. "What's in your bag?"

She wraps an arm around my waist. We aren't far from our parents now and I hope that the strange man doesn't come back to ask us for anything. I still wonder where she got the knife and I know she's going to tell me soon enough. We both pause and Ariela looks around. I know she's checking to see that the strange man isn't following us.

"That man had a lot of knives," she tells me. "He took several out to show them to the people he was talking to and I sort of slipped one into my bag."

I smack the back of her head. "Are you stupid? He's going to count them all and notice one's missing!"

"No, he won't," she replies. "There are too many for him to count. I didn't even take his best one."

I roll my eyes and bring her back to our group. Tziporah notices Ariela's presence and grabs her a chair. We all sit down and I notice that Jumana and Ima have moved on from their discussion about family relations. Ariela leans back in her chair, only somewhat paying attention to the conversation.

"King Miguel and Queen Edite have been promoting this religion of theirs endlessly," Jumana tells Ima and Abba. "They call it La Fe Nueva. It has all these gods and goddesses and they are letting common folk, even children, make their own small idols. I don't believe in the religion, of course, but I don't care whether or not other Espanyos adopt it. The King and Queen are using it to promote good works and charity and yada yada yada."

"What is it with these new faiths?" Abba asks. "All these new religions that came after the Transformation seem to be all doing the same thing! 'Oh, thank whatever god for the Transformation, ah!' I'm so sick of it."

Ima touches Abba's shoulder, reminding him not to get too carried away in his rant. The Transformation happened at least a millennium ago, yet Abba talks about it as if it happened in his lifetime. He always felt some strong bond with what is now Falasteen, which Ima didn't share. Ima was content with her existence in the Diaspora, as was my sister Ariela. Tziporah felt similarly to Abba, but less extreme. I could never decide which side I took. It seemed too complicated to take one side.

"This new religion thinks of evil in a strange way," Jumana says. "They think that there are two evil forces that infect everything. One infects mortals and the other infects gods. I think that's a way of saying that these gods of theirs can't do their job."

Abba laughs. "Gods can't do their job!"

The smile on Jumana's face grows even wider and I see that Abba is starting to like her. I don't know how she felt being tricked by my twin, but I doubt she's particularly angry, considering how well she is getting along with Ima and Abba. I wonder whether or not Ima and Abba would have had to beg Jumana not to think of all of them as thieves and schemers based on Ariela's actions had they not found how small their world was.

"I see your point with all of these new religions," Jumana replies to Abba. "But if that comforts them and doesn't hurt anyone else, let them be. I really don't care what these people do with their time."

"Tell me more about this La Fe Nueva," Ima tells her.

Jumana clears her throat. "Well, they believe that these two gods, Corifai and Vismatrina, create beings called the Major Deities. There is Caeliana, who created the physical world, the spiritual world and the Minor Deities. There is Autruino, the God of Charity, Foedrisa, the Goddess of Love, Labosro, the God of Industriousness, Edidilia, the Goddess of Plenty, and Tueori, the God of Protection."

Abba laughs again. "How are people supposed to remember all of these deities?"

"There were once religions that had ten times the number of deities, Ariel," Ima reminds him.

Abba rolls his eyes while Ima listens to Jumana's lesson on La Fe Nueva. She mentions the Minor Deities, which were Etasina the Timekeeper, Teluriso the Watcher of Earth, Astriana the Watcher of Stars, and Aitero the Watcher of Heavens. Abba had a point in wondering how people remembered this many deities. Tziporah and I can't even get Ariela to remember all of her prayers for our single god.

Ariela was half-listening and tracing the edges of the knife with her fingers with a slight smile. I sigh and wish that the ferry would arrive at our destination soon. I imagine what Port of Almeria would look like, assuming that it looked a little better than the Nador Port of Beni Ansar. I think about what the language would sound like and hope that we're able to stay in Espanya for a while. I hope to learn enough of the language to become fluent.

Ima starts to talk about her family. "My sister Nava loved Matan. They knew each other since they were Hila's age, I think, and they had been courting each other for years. Eventually, our parents just gave in and let them marry."

"Shimon talked to Matan recently. They have a daughter now, also about Hila's age."

The mention of a cousin gets Ariela's attention. Now her hands are both folded in front of her rather than stroking the knife hidden in her bag. I become curious about this new cousin as well and hope that she gets along with us when we meet her.

"Her name is Luz," Jumana tells us. "Matan's brother, Hillel, has a son who's probably a little older than Tziporah. His name is Chaim."

"Is he planning on marrying anyone?" Tziporah asks. I figure that she's wondering if he is available for courting. Considering that she and Chaim are only related by marriage, no one would have any objections as far as my knowledge goes.

Jumana shrugs. "As far as I know, he hasn't found someone."

Tziporah smiles a little bit. All of us now have a reason to be happy; Ima gets to see her family, Abba made a friend out of Jumana, Tziporah now looks forward to meeting Chaim, and Ariela and I hope to befriend our cousin Luz. I almost forget about the knife Ariela has in her bag until the man who owned it comes close to us, acting like he doesn't acknowledge our presence. Just then, Tziporah coughs out of nowhere and I see the man smile.

In the distance, I see a bit of land. Everyone else gathers around the edges of the boat to see it as well and I wonder if everyone on one side would tip the balance. After a little bit of time, I see that it made no difference, and I relax. Ariela stands beside me, enjoying the sight of Port of Almeria.

There were several boats tied to individual docks and even more ships tied to larger ones. This port was busier than Nador Port, to my surprise, as it wasn't as wealthy a nation as Shmali-Agharabi Maghreb. Perhaps more of the poor sought an opportunity by participating in foreign trade. Either that or today just happened to be a busy day.

"Finally," Ariela murmurs.

It doesn't take too long for the boat to go to its appropriate dock. Ima, Abba, and Tziporah gather our things and I hold Ariela's hand. On the boat, a queue forms and the man stands behind us, giggling softly. I squeeze my twin's hand more tightly, feeling unnerved by that man, and I wait anxiously until we're able to get off the boat.

Our family carefully exits the boat after Jumana gets off of it. It doesn't stink as much as it did in Beni Ansar. I assume it is due to the temperature being colder here. Beside me, Ariela shivers slightly and I hug her to keep her warm.

"We're in Espanya," Ima says.

Suddenly, she starts speaking another language to Jumana and I try to pick up what she said.

"Yo espero que yo puede hablar bien. Yo olvidé mucha la idioma."

Jumana laughs. "No te preocupes."

Ariela raises an eyebrow. "What did you just say?"

Jumana smiles. "Your mother was worried that she couldn't speak the language well enough. She's forgot a lot of it."

Ima looks around for public transportation. Jumana joins us and we find a stop for a shuttle. I see one shuttle drive by and learn that the ones here are much worse than the ones in Shmali-Agharabi Maghreb. This one has several broken windows and someone vandalized it with obscene depictions of genitalia. Tziporah wrinkles her nose in disgust while Ariela giggles and Abba simply covers his mouth. Ima and Jumana sigh, knowing that they can't find anything better, and we walk toward the shuttle.

I turn around and see the strange wealthy man who wanted to trade standing in the middle of the road. He smiles at me strangely and someone passes by in front of him. All of the sudden, he is gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Ariela

I see Hila rushing to sit next to me on the shuttle. She seems frightened by something I'm not aware of and once she plops down beside me, she holds my arm tightly. The shuttle takes off, making rackety sounds, and I start to wonder if this shuttle will explode before we make it halfway to Madrid.

"Remember the man whose knife you stole?" she asks me. "I saw him outside. Someone passed by him and he just _disappeared_."

I am unnerved for a moment. The shuttle goes over a road bump and we all bounce. I land awkwardly on my butt again and groan a little bit, wondering how often this would happen here. The shuttles weren't nearly as bad in either Alustaa Maghreb or Shmali-Agharabi Maghreb. I guess that technology is worse in Ard Kharaba.

"Ima?" Hila asks, leaning over to see our mom in front of us. "How long is this shuttle ride going to be?"

Jumana responds across from us. "Seven hours."

I slide down the seat, sulking. We're not going to get to Madrid until midnight and there is no way I'm going to sleep on this shuttle. I think of Menashe in Shmali-Agharabi Maghreb and wonder what he is doing at this moment. Hila leans on me and closes her eyes. Everyone on the shuttle seems to be tired. How they'll manage to sleep here, I have no clue.

Behind me, I hear someone praying in that language our mom spoke to Jumana. I hear a few names of the deities that Jumana mentioned while we were on the ferry, but I don't remember what they represented. I just hear the man saying "Corifai," "Vismatrina," and "Caeliana" over and over again. Next to him, a young girl starts saying the names too. I resist the urge to kick my seat from how annoying this all was.

"So that's what their prayers sound like," Hila comments. "The language is very pretty."

"Knowing you, you'll become fluent in just six months."

Hila shakes her head. "That's not true. It'd take me at the very least a year."

"More than I can manage," I grumble. "I could live here for ten years and not understand anything anyone is saying."

We let the conversation drop and my stomach starts to growl, despite that I had eaten plenty on the ferry. Hila and I don't talk for the rest of the shuttle ride. Instead, I just look outside my broken window and observe people trading with one another. After a few hours, we drive past ruins of old chapels being restored for what I assume is La Fe Nueva. Many buildings we pass by are dilapidated, bland and appearing either wrecked or burned. The air smells funny as well and all my ears could pick up were the screeching of tires and odd accents. I start to miss the Maghreb nations, no matter how screwed over we were there.

It takes a long time to even get half way there. The buildings start to look newer and more pleasing to the eye. A few buildings have amateurish statues beside the doors, each resembling mouthless people with simple clothing and baldheads. A few statues we pass by are decorated with moss that had grown over them, some featuring small flowers on the place most exposed to the sun. The air starts to stink terribly of something unnatural and I almost whine about the broken windows when I notice that many people are asleep.

Surprisingly, I fall asleep quickly and do not wake up until we are almost there. The first thing I heard upon my waking was Jumana and our mother speaking that language to each other and our father groaning over back pain. I notice that the people I see here are not the same people that boarded the bus several hours ago. Only a few people remain now and I assume that is due to it being so late. I wake up my sister and we follow our family off the bus, making sure we didn't lose anything on our journey here.

"You can stay the night at my place," Jumana says. "It's not far from here."

We walk the streets of Madrid and Hila and I share a shawl from it being strangely cold. Tziporah walks behind us, occasionally rubbing our arms to make sure we're warm, and our parents follow Jumana. We walk just a few blocks past where we got off and turn left, going to a primarily residential area. None of us can see very much and Jumana has trouble locating her house. Finally, we find it and Jumana unlocks the door so we can get in.

Jumana cracks her neck and takes a deep breath before she closes the door softly. I assume that someone who lives here is already asleep and remain quiet. We all look around and I notice that the house is fairly large for one or two people, considering how many rooms I can count just from where I stand. Tziporah lets our things drop and they make a quiet thud sound that seems louder now that we're trying to keep quiet. Jumana doesn't seem to mind, so we all let it go.

"There's a few spare rooms down that hall," Jumana tells us quietly. "I haven't cleaned them yet. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," our mom says.

There are three empty bedrooms and we split up the way we usually do. Our parents share one room, Tziporah goes to another, and Hila and I share one. Tziporah goes to the smallest room and our parents pick the one across from it, leaving us only one choice, and we go to that room. Immediately, we both go straight to the bed and fall right asleep.

* * *

"Ariela," I hear from behind a door. "Wake up!"

I push myself up, groaning. I stretch myself out a little bit and I wonder if I should change into a different set of clothes. Looking down at myself, I think that my clothes aren't too dirty or wrinkled, and I simply tie my hair back. Hila opens the door and I see that she has put on a fresh change of clothes.

Clothes we don't own.

"Where'd you get that?" I ask her.

She looks down. "Oh, the dress? Jumana gave it to me. It was something she used to wear when she was younger and thinner."

The dress drops past her feet and she holds it up with one hand to keep from tripping as she walks down the hall. I follow her and hear people speaking in that language again. Jumana's husband, or so I think, must have been introducing himself to our parents and talking about mutual contacts.

A man who calls himself Shimon talks to my parents and to a few visitors. A man sits on a stool while a woman talks to my mom and a girl, who must have been my age, looks around aimlessly.

"Ariela," my mom says to me. "Meet my family."

It finally occurs to me that the visitors are the Ben-Alhazzans. I forget their first names, except for Luz, the cousin that Hila and I looked forward to meeting. I gaze at her especially, noticing how pretty she was, and I can't help but feel a little bit of admiration. Touching my own curly hair, I compare it to her straight, braided locks, and I compare her hazel eyes to my own dark brown ones. Hila notices Luz as well and I wonder if she compares her own green eyes to Luz's. Luz is a little lighter skinned than the both of us and I attribute it to her living north of where we lived.

"My sister Nava," our mom says, pointing to the grown woman. "And her husband, Matan. His brother is a close family friend of Shimon's."

"Hello, Ariela," they both respond in our private language, which Jumana doesn't speak, or so I assume.

"I understand you two," Jumana says in Arabic, which is spoken everywhere in our known world. "I just can't speak your language. What is it, Hebrew?"

Nava and I both nod. Luz notices me with a smile and I notice that I can't help but smile as well. Whatever nature she has, it was certainly infectious.

Soon enough, we're sitting down and eating at a table located in another room. I walk in and scan it, noticing a mezuzah on the doorpost, the green tablecloth laid out for us, and a large Hamsa nailed into the wall. On the hamsa, I see "Shimon and Jumana" written in Arabic, Hebrew, and the script of that one language I keep forgetting the name of. We all find a place to eat and Jumana brings several types of food to the table, all of which are both kosher and halaal.

"Why not have wine?" Nava asks. "To celebrate my sister and her family coming?"

Jumana laughs. "Nava, you know I don't _drink_."

Nevertheless, Shimon brings a bottle of wine and several small cups to the table. My mom and Nava already start talking about their childhood. My dad starts talking to Matan about the new faiths coming around, laughing at the absurdity of it, and Shimon pours the wine into the small cups, mumbling a short prayer quietly. Once he finishes, he passes the cups around until everyone except Jumana has one. We all say the prayer he previously mumbled and drink. I am pleasantly surprised by the taste; I have never drunk Espanyan wine.

"Interesting taste," Tziporah comments.

Jumana starts serving food on plates and I notice how varied it is. There were two loaves of fresh bread, a small pot of beans, three different types of cheese and strawberries. They must have been well off here if they got such a surplus of food. My mouth waters and I grab the first plate, taking a bite of bread before I even sit back down. My family laughs.

"This one," my mother says. "She eats like a pig!"

"Just as long as you don't _eat_ pig," Nava replies.

Everyone else receives their plate and starts eating. I start placing the various bits of cheese on my bread and take large bites before I move on to the strawberries. I slurp on the juice coming from the fruit. Immediately, everyone looks at me and I put the strawberry down. I pick up more bread and chew quietly so everyone can go back to their business.

"What languages do you know?" Luz asks Hila and I in broken Hebrew.

"Arabic and Hebrew," Hila answers before I say anything. "I hope to learn the language here too. What is it again?"

"Espanyol," Luz answers. "I speak it well and I learn a little bit of Arabic at school."

Hila and I both raise our eyebrows. She and I had never attended a formal school before. Our parents simply taught us how to write in both languages and very basic math. I remember more from our math lessons than Hila does, which is something I'm a bit smug about. Most of the time, Hila learns things more quickly than I do, so this was the one thing that I could hold over her.

"A real school?" Hila asks. "Where?"

Luz finishes chewing a strawberry. "A man has a small school in his living room at his house. He teaches without pay. Many kids go, but not every day. He is from Sharqi Maghreb. Have you been there?"

I shake my head. For most of my life, we've lived in Alustaa Maghreb. I knew that Sharqi Maghreb was just east of that, but my family hasn't ventured near there. I start to wonder if Jumana has been there and assume so. She's probably been everywhere.

"He went to many places, that man," Luz says. "He says he's been through all the Maghreb nations: Alustaa, Sharqi, Shmali-Agharabi, and Jenubi-Agharabi. Sometimes he tells us stories."

I start eating my beans and Hila picks up the conversation with Luz. Luz starts teaching Hila bits of "Espanyol" and I listen in, hoping to pick up _something_ on my first full day in Espanya.

"How do you say hello?" Hila asks.

"Hola."

Hila stops eating for a second. "Oh-la?"

Luz nods. "Yes, hola."

Now my mother and Nava are speaking to each other in Espanyol, which must make my dad feel left out. Jumana starts talking to him in Arabic, which makes him happy, and Shimon and Matan start talking in Hebrew.

"And goodbye?" Hila asks.

"Adios."

Hila makes sure she remembers these basic greetings. "Hola and adios. Hello and goodbye. Hola and adios."

"You help me with Arabic and I help you with Espanyol," Luz tells Hila.

Hila nods and I start to feel mildly jealous of my sister. I had hoped to befriend Luz and she had beaten me to it. I finish my food and sulk a little bit at the table, waiting until everyone was done eating. At the end, Matan and Nava invites our family to stay at his house and we pack our bags, thanking Jumana and Shimon for allowing us to stay the night.


	6. Chapter 6

Hila

I continue talking with Luz about languages as we travel from Jumana's home to the Ben-Alhazzan's, which wasn't particularly far. Ariela walks behind us, listening to our conversation, and our parents talk to Luz's parents about everything to be said about Espanya. I get excited to see all the new things this country has to show me and I can tell Luz looks forward to showing me around. Ariela must be hoping to see everything as well, as far as I can tell. Luz tells me more about this informal school that she attends.

"They like everyone there," Luz tells me. "They're nice to Moslems, Jews, Feses…"

"What are Feses?" I ask her.

"They believe in La Fe Nueva," she tells me.

Ariela barges in on our conversation. "So who teaches at this school you keep talking about?"

"Adnan El-Amin," Luz answers. "He teaches Moslems, Jews, Feses, and Anielasts."

Ariela almost stops walking. "Now _what_ are Anielasts?"

I pull Ariela's arm so she keeps walking at our pace. The air is cooler than I'm used to, so I keep an old shawl wrapped around my arms. Ariela huddles next to me for warmth. Luz looks back at us and giggles.

"Not normal weather for you?" she asks, her Hebrew showing glaringly obvious errors. "Ariela, you'll find out about Anielasts when you go to the school. I take you two today if you want."

It wasn't long before we arrived at the Ben-Alhazzan's. The house was not as nice as Jumana's, but it was a bit larger and still nicer than anything our family has ever lived in. I start to wonder why Ima left Espanya to begin with and make a mental note to ask her later, once we're all done unpacking.

When we enter, I notice the house as a distinct smell to it. I assume it is incense and look around, seeing no one else in the house. After I notice there are no other children, I assume that Luz is either an only child or her eldest siblings have already moved out and formed families of their own. I hope it was the latter, otherwise that would mean something bad pertaining to either Matan and Nava's relationship or to Nava's fertility. I couldn't imagine what I'd feel if I could only have one child.

"Follow me," Luz tells Ariela and I. "Abba made a new room not long ago. It is next to mine."

There is a short hallway to our left and I watch as Luz walks down it. Ariela immediately follows her while I look around the place. A few mezuzahs are nailed into doorposts and there is an old, worn siddur, which looked similar to Abba's except that it had Espanyol writing. After a moment, I follow Ariela and Luz down the hall and look at the room we'll be sharing.

The room is bigger than the one Jumana gave us. The walls are plain, as is everything else, but everything is clean. Ariela has already placed her things in the corner and organized the few blankets we have to form a small sleeping space for us both. She lies down on it and looks up at the ceiling, taking in a deep breath before she closes her eyes. I hope she's not going to fall asleep again.

"Ariela?" I ask. "You're not going to sleep, are you?"

She lets out a loud, obnoxious snore and I know that she's joking. Immediately, she looks at me and laughs and I turn my back to find Luz. I'm hoping that she can take me to that school today. Whether or not Ariela wants to come is not my concern.

"Luz?" I call for her. "Can you show me that school you were talking about?"

She gets out of her room, fixes her sweater, and shows me her coin purse. It has a thin strap that allows one to carry it over one's shoulder, which she does exactly, and a small compartment inside it. I see she has more coins than I ever had at one time and wonder what her parents do for a living.

"Come, Hila," Luz says. "I show you the school. There is also the marketplace. I can show you around."

We proceed to the room where all of the adults are talking. Tziporah notices us two first and taps Ima on the shoulder, turning her attention to us, and we tell Ima that we're going out. Nava looks outside before she looks at Ima.

"All right," they both say. "But come back before it gets dark."

Ima looks down the hallway where we came from. "Isn't Ariela going with you?"

I shrug. In all honesty, I don't want Ariela coming with us. She has a tendency to cause trouble and I don't want to get into any on my first full day in Espanya. In any case, I highly doubt that Ariela would have any interest in what Adnan El-Amin would have to teach us today. We both wait a minute and notice that Ariela isn't leaving that room, so we both shrug and leave the house.

"Where is the school?" I ask Luz.

She looks toward the direction of the sun. "Not far from here. It's this way."

Luz grabs my hand and takes me in the direction of the sun, not opposite the direction of Jumana's house but not in that direction either. We cross the small road and slip through an alleyway between two houses before we make a left. The streets are busier than they were before and the air starts to smell worse. This isn't unusual. I simply attribute the worsening aroma to people's body odor.

"Are Anielasts one of those faiths that came after the Transformation?" I ask.

"The what?"

I repeat, "Transformation," in Arabic, hoping that she might understand. Her facial expression changes, showing understanding, and she nods. I worry that Abba will meet one of these Anielasts and ridicule their faith. Ima, however, will be much more tolerant.

"The Anielasts are interesting people," Luz tells me. "Everyone usually likes them but everyone also thinks the Anielasts are odd."

I shrug. "Better than what they think of us Jews."

Luz laughs. "That is true. That is true."

She stops in front of a modest looking house and knocks on the door. I wait behind her as a man opens the door and peers at the both of us. He smiles at Luz and then gazes at me with curiosity. Luz must not bring many people to meet him.

"Adnan El-Amin," Luz greets him. "Hola."

"Tu trajiste una amiga?" Adnan asks.

"Una prima," Luz replies. "Su nombre es Hila."

I interrupt the two briefly by speaking to him in Arabic. "My name's Hila. I'm her cousin. My family came her yesterday from Shmali-Agharabi Maghreb. We had a long trip."

Adnan smiles and I see that he is missing a tooth. "I can imagine. I've traveled through all the Maghreb nations. They all like to pretend they're different from one another, but if you stay in them long enough, they all seem to blur together."

I giggle a little bit and Luz pouts. "Que vosotros habláis?"

"Ustedes," Adnan says, waving a figure. "Usted hablas '_ustedes_', no 'vosotros'. Yo no soy un amigo, yo soy un profesor."

Now it's my turn to pout. I have no idea what they're saying and I'm eager to find out. Adnan detects my excitement and lets the both of us in. He closes the door behind us and I see several kids conversing to one another in either Espanyol or Arabic. I take the time to count them. There are seven of them, four boys and three girls. The biggest one doesn't look older than fifteen.

"Only three of them are Feses," Luz tells me.

"What else is there?" I ask her. "Any other Jews?"

Luz walks to a small stool and sits down while Adnan brings out a book to read to the kids. They all notice me and I detect a certain curiosity in all of them. A boy about my age smiles a little wider than the others and I immediately feel comfortable around him. The smallest one, who looks about my age, runs to my side.

"Hola," he says. "Me llamo Emilio y yo soy un Fes. Como te llamas?"

"In Arabic, Emilio," Adnan asks of him. "She can't understand you."

Emilio looks down for a moment before clearing his throat and looking at me again. "Hello, I'm Emilio and I'm a Fes. What's your name?"

I kneel down to meet his eyes and I touch his small hand. "I'm Hila."

The boy giggles. "You're pretty."

I look back at Luz, who seems amused by the entourage. Judging by the reaction of these kids, I assume that they must not meet very many new people or I'm foreign enough to fascinate them no matter how many people they meet. I pat Emilio's head and look straight ahead at a girl my age with blonde hair and blue eyes. I find her appearance odd and mildly frightening, which causes me to step back a bit. This seems to amuse her.

"That's Celestina, a Fes," Luz whispers to me in Hebrew. "She's a bitch."

I struggle not to laugh. "You sound like Ariela now."

One by one, all of the students, aside from Celestina, introduces themselves to me. The oldest of them, Diego, is fourteen. Luz quickly tells me that he has no religion, which puzzles me, and I learn that people like him are a minority here. A boy of eight, whom I learn is a Moslem, introduces himself as Ihsan. I wonder whether Ihsan and Adnan are related or not, but I don't ask. The last Fes introduces herself as Eulalia. I notice small buds developing on her chest and assume that she is a couple years older than I. The last to introduce themselves to me are the Anielasts and I quickly learn there are different types.

"Armelle," a young girl says to me. "I am an Arnauden Anielast."

Arnauden means nothing to me at this point. I hope Adnan explains all this Anielast stuff to me soon before these Anielasts start to confuse me. I think of what Abba would say to these people and their different faiths, wondering which one he would ridicule more: the Anielasts or the Feses. No doubt would they both confuse him.

The boy who smiled more widely than the rest stands in front of me, hand outstretched. His skin, like Celestina's, is paler than most, so its very easy for me to tell that he is blushing. His light brown eyes display a certain innocence that makes him look sheepish and his mannerisms seem similar to that of a child. I take his hand and he seems satisfied.

"I'm Witold," he says in Arabic. "I am Eligian Anielast."

"I'm Hila," I reply, giving his hand a slightly affectionate squeeze. "I am a Jew."

He looks at my cousin. "Like Luz?"

We let go of each other's hands and I answer him. "Yes. Like Luz."

Adnan returns with a book and sits on a small stool in front of an oval-shaped rug. The book is old and worn, like most books I've seen, and the title is written in both Espanyol and Arabic. It is a collection of stories that took place during the Transformation and I know I'm going to recognize a few of them. I wait and see if he is going to read them in Espanyol or Arabic, hoping it is the latter, and wonder just how many stories are in that book. Just then, a hand shoots up from the small audience and Adnan chuckles.

"Yes, Ihsan?" Adnan asks.

He puts his hand down. "Yo quiero que usted lea…"

"Ihsan," Adnan corrects him. "In Arabic."

Ihsan sighs, slightly rocking on the dirty rug. "Can you read the one with the Maker of Deals?"

Emilio starts hopping in place with excitement and Armelle quickly follows suit. Eulalia and Witold start saying, "por favor," repeatedly, Diego waits patiently for Adnan to say yes and even Celestina seems eager to hear the story. This tale must be very popular here in Espanya, but not many must have heard it in the Maghreb nations. I've never heard of the Maker of Deals before now.

"What is the Maker of Deals?"

All of the kids turn around, surprised that this was unfamiliar to me. Celestina silently scoffs. Luz sneers at her and Witold looks at me with a smile, waving his hand to invite me over. I promptly sit next to him and he scoots closer to me, leaning back in such a way that one of his hands was behind me. Immediately, Eulalia starts teasing Witold in Espanyol and he gets annoyed, so he sits normally again, pretending not to be aware that I was there. Adnan clears his throat and informs everyone that he will be reading the story in Arabic, much to my relief.

"The Transformation," he reads. "Came about when the nations in power fell. The country across the great sea was in shambles. The nations of Ard Kharaba started to fall apart. Espanya and Fransa were lucky not to be completely destroyed. The Maghreb nations started to gain power. Filisteen was in the control of the rebels, as it is today."

That last part makes both Luz and I slightly uneasy and I see Celestina give us a nasty look. Adnan coughs, hinting at her misdemeanor, and she faces forward again. He continues reading.

"For many years after, people have tried to answer the question of 'why'. The people to the far east claim that the world to the far west had lost its right to rule the world. The rulers of the Maghreb nations think their god gave them the right to come to power. The people of eastern Ard Kharaba lament their ruin and try to redeem themselves to their deity. Whatever the reason, we know someone, or something, came out of those torn lands."

"The Maker of Deals!" Emilio says, almost jumping.

"Everyone has a different name for him. We don't know exactly what he looks like until we meet him. What we do know is that he causes misery to everyone he meets. All of this he does by making a deal with you."

Eulalia leans over Ihsan's shoulder and whispers slowly. "Would you like to make a deal?"

Ihsan grumbles and crawls away from Eulalia, who starts laughing and teasing him. Witold accepts Ihsan into his arms and everyone settles down. Celestina huffs, indignant that anyone dare get rowdy when Adnan reads the story so popular here in Espanya. Luz scoffs at Celestina and whispers to me in Hebrew so no one would understand them.

"See how she is angry?" Luz asks.

I nod. Diego, who sits farthest from the group, grumbles and asks everyone to stop talking so Adnan can continue reading. Adnan remains calm and waits until everybody is quiet. Finally, he speaks again.

"Where was I? Ahh, the Maker of Deals," he says. "Some say he is a demon straight from the underworld. Others think he was once human and became a magical being who abused his powers. No one knows where he came from or how long he has been around. He asks if you want to exchange something. Make any request and he can give it to you, but you have to give up a part of yourself. At first, you think that it is a harmless exchange. Wait long enough and you see that you made a mistake and will live in misery. No one yet knows how to reverse his curses."

"Que paso cuando…," Armelle asks.

"In Arabic," Adnan tells her.

Armelle pauses for a moment and I assume that she is translating the words in her head. Finally, she speaks.

"What happened when someone said no to him?" Armelle asks.

Adnan turns a page in his old book. "I was just getting to that. There were always people who refused him. This always made him angry. Sometimes, if you refused, he might punish you right then and there. Other times, he would wait until he could punish you from afar. You won't even know that it was he that dealt you the pain. We don't know why he causes pain everywhere he goes. All we can assume is that it pleases him."

Witold turns his attention to me. "The prophet of our faith, Aniela, met the Maker of Deals and survived. She didn't let him touch her."

I ignore him, wanting to hear the rest of Adnan's story. Luz watches the both of us, apparently finding us an amusing pair to observe, and I scoot away from him slightly. Eulalia returns to teasing Witold in Espanyol and Witold, yet again, pretends to not be interested in me.

"Do the Jews make deals with him?" Celestina asked in perfect Arabic.

I immediately answer her. "We haven't even heard of him. In any case, we know better than to engage in those whom we cannot trust. We've had centuries of practice."

Celestina scoffs at my answer. "Does that explain your lot?"

Luz proceeds to scold her in Espanyol. Though I don't understand what Luz said, I know it must have been particularly biting, as Celestina immediately stops talking after. Witold seems amused by Celestina's shame. The rest are quiet until Adnan continues reading.

"There was a man by the name of Ghyslain," Adnan speaks. "He lived in Fransa. He was a wealthy merchant and a smart, kind man. He gave food and money to those who needed it. He taught whoever wanted to learn. He befriended anyone who was lonely. However, he did not have a wife."

"So he made a deal?" Emilio asked.

Adnan nodded. "The Maker of Deals saw his vulnerability. He asked Ghyslain if he wanted to make an exchange. Ghyslain, eager to have a wife, said yes. The Maker of Deals said a companion would come his way if he gives up his honesty. Ghyslain was drunk at the time. In his stupor, he agreed to the deal."

"So what happened?" Ihsan asked.

"In time, Ghyslain had a wife. What he did not realize was that his honesty was his best trait. Without his honesty, he became someone he no longer recognized in the mirror. He cheated all of his friends, he lied to everyone he made business with, and he was deceitful towards his new wife. After a while, she left him to marry another man. He lost everything he had and died alone."

I think about the wealthy, strange man that our family met yesterday. He had been suspiciously eager to trade with us. He had a sinister element to him and smelled disgusting, which made me suspicious as to his identity and origin. I worry especially now that I remember Ariela has one of his knives. If he was the man Adnan had described in that storybook, our lives are bound to be miserable. I shake the suspicion, remembering that these stories are just make-believe, created to entertain people waiting for something fun to happen.

After he reads us a story, Adnan allows everyone to leave if they so choose. Luz asks me if I want to leave. I want to learn more from this man, but hearing the stories about the Maker of Deals made me uneasy, and I wanted to forget about the stories and about Celestina. I say yes to her offer. Witold gets up and follows us out the door.

"Donde vosotros vais?" Witold asks Luz.

"Tu pides porque tu quieres conocer Hila, verdad?"

"Yo quiero que Hila sea mi amiga," Witold responds.

"Te _gusta_ Hila?"

Witold huffs and places his hands in his poorly sewn pockets. I want to understand what they're saying and wait for Luz to translate their conversation into Hebrew. She holds my hand and takes me closer to her so Witold cannot hear us. Witold, knowing what Luz will do, takes a few steps closer in order to eavesdrop on our conversation.

"We all know he likes you," Luz says in Hebrew.

We both look behind and see a frustrated Witold sulking as he follows us. His cheeks are redder than anything I've ever seen and I immediately feel sorry for him. I go up to him and tap his shoulder. He looks up at me with an embarrassed expression.

"You want to come over?" I ask him in Arabic. "The rest of my family is at Luz's house."

Luz giggles at my invitation and Witold accepts. She and I hold hands the whole way there and Witold stays close behind me, hoping to hold my other hand at some point.

We take a different route back to Luz's house and I try to remember the paths we took for future reference. She takes us past a few homes with trash festering just outside them and I almost barf. Witold pats my back, making sure I'm okay, and we continue.

"What's wrong with Celestina?" I ask.

"She's mean," Witold answers. "She's a very faithful Fes, but she misunderstands its doctrine. I know this because Eulalia tells me everything Celestina does wrong with the faith. They go to El Templo together to pray every night."

"She thinks Feses are better than everyone else," Luz adds. "Jews, Moslems, Anielasts, anything."

It isn't long before we return to Luz's home. Nava answers the door and lets us in, noticing Witold and welcoming him with a familiar smile. He slightly bows in her direction and waits for her to explicitly grant him permission to enter.

Nava laughs. "Tu no necesitas esperar por–"

"Lo siento," Witold interrupts before covering his mouth, as if he had made a mistake.

"Tu puedes venir en mi casa," Nava replies and he steps in cautiously.

Luz and I follow him in and I spot Ariela sitting on a short stool near us. She and Witold take a good look at each other. He glances at her, then at me, then at her while she gazes at him from top to bottom. Witold must be surprised that I have a twin.

"You have a new friend?" Ariela asks me in Hebrew.

Again Witold grumbles at the thought of someone talking about him in a language he cannot understand. I am slightly amused by this, but I pity him for this as well, so I reassure him that it is not what he thinks she said.

"She asked if I made a new friend," I explain to him in Arabic.

He sighs in relief before he introduces himself to my sister. "My name is Witold."

"Ariela," she replies, seeming uninterested.

I notice that every other adult is gone. Witold seems curious about my family, so I tap him on the shoulder to get his attention and tell him about myself.

"We have an older sister named Tziporah. She and our parents must be out right now," I tell him.

He sits on the floor beside Ariela's stool and I sit beside him. Luz closes our circle and we spend a little time talking about ourselves while Nava busies herself with domestic work. She makes a comment about our parents and Matan going out to the market with Tziporah before we busy ourselves again with conversation.

"Where did you come from?" Witold asks us.

"Shmali-Agharabi Maghreb," I answer. "We were originally in Alustaa Maghreb, but we had to cross the border illegally in order to get to the port city closest to Espanya. From there, we traveled to Espanya by ferry and then took a shuttle to Madrid."

"Oh, tell him about the strange man!" Ariela replies. "This guy was traveling on the ferry and he kept asking us if we wanted to trade with him. He must have thought we were all prostitutes or something. He was pretty gross."

"What?" Witold asks, shocked. "Prostitutes? But you're my age!"

"He was creepy," Ariela replies. "I decided to get a little revenge on that guy. When he wasn't looking, I took one of his knives. I still have it."

"You _stole_?" Witold asks, seemingly shocked again. "Why would you do that?"

_I wonder the same thing,_ I think to myself, but I don't say it out loud. Witold folds his hands in his lap, fidgeting with his fingers nervously, and sighs. I start to wonder if he has ever met an immoral person in his life.

"The guy deserved it," Ariela answered nonchalantly.

Nava returns from her domestic duties and looks outside, seeing that the sun has started setting. Matan, Abba, Ima, and Tziporah must be returning from the market by now and I assume that Witold has to leave soon.

"Witold," Nava says. "Cuando tu tienes que salir?"

Witold looks outside. "Ahora," he says, getting up and stopping just short of opening the door. "Hila irá a la casa de Adnan mañana?"

Luz turns to me. "Do you want to go back to the school tomorrow?"

I nod and Luz replies to Witold. "Si."

"También yo iré," Witold tells Luz before he leaves, sprinting in order to return home.

All of us three get up and walk down the hallway when Ariela and Luz stop me just before the door to my room. Luz smiles and enters her room, closing her door with a giggle. Now I stare at Ariela, wondering what in the world she is thinking.

"You and Witold are perfect for each other," Ariela says, much to my frustration.


	7. Chapter 7

Ariela

"So this is the school?" I had said to Hila when she and Luz showed me Adnan's small home.

Luz had introduced me to everyone. Like Witold, Luz and Hila, I had immediately disliked the girl named Celestina. The others were all right. Emilio and Ihsan were amusing enough, Armelle was energetic, and Eulalia and Diego were nice to me. Eulalia teased Witold a lot for his crush on Hila and Luz and I often joined in on it. Hila didn't show the slightest interest in romance, which made Witold's ordeal all the more amusing. In time, Witold and I became good friends. Hila had already started to pick up Espanyol. A week and a half had passed since we first arrived and I was much preferring this place to the Maghreb nations. Perhaps I preferred it because we no longer had to keep moving around in hopes of finding someone who was willing to take us in.

Today, Adnan decided to take us to the wealthier neighborhoods when we start hearing cries of excitement. Celestina is the first to investigate. Eulalia follows her and they both come back, excited about what they had seen. Celestina is the first to tell us the news.

"El Rey y la Reina!" Celestina squeals. "Hay es un desfile! Nosotros podemos verlo?"

"Es verdad?" Adnan replies. "Donde?"

Celestina and Eulalia lead us to the main street, which is wider than all the other roads, and we see that everyone is crowding to this location. I try to push my way to the front of the crowd and see what everyone is excited about. In the distance, I see horses pulling large, open-air carriages. The people cheer at them happily, though I don't understand why, and I shove a few people out of my way to get a better look. There is one carriage carrying a couple dressed in black. All of the sudden, Adnan is behind me.

"Ariela," he says. "That couple there, they are the Sacerdote and the Sacerdotisa."

"The what?" I ask, turning to face him while expressing confusion.

He waits until my attention is on the couple before he explains further. "The Priest and Priestess of La Fe Nueva. They are Garaile and Adora Castro. They were personally appointed by the Queen herself."

Behind the Castro couple is a carriage carrying six people. I count four men and two women in the vehicle slowly following the one before it. They do not look much older than the Castro couple. I notice one woman is dressed similarly to Adora Castro and is wearing a particularly haughty and childish expression. The others seem to be dressed more modestly.

"Now, those people are students of the Castro couple," Adnan explains to me in Arabic. "They help spread the doctrine of La Fe Nueva and publicize its charity. I can name them all, if you want."

"Sure," I reply nonchalantly.

"All right," he says. "Jorge Ferrer and Leticia Barros sit in the front. Behind them are Manolo Villa and Dulce Santos, who aren't as far into study as Jorge and Leticia. Behind them are Elias Ojeda and Eloy Hierro. Jorge and Leticia would become the next Priest and Priestess when the Castro couple retires. It is common for the Priest and Priestess to marry each other before fulfilling their religious duties."

"Vea!" Celestina squeals again. "El Rey y la Reina! Las princesas y el principe! Vea!"

We all look where Celestina is pointing. Behind the carriage of religious students, an open-air carriage, more decorated than the rest, carries who I assume is the King and Queen. Their seats are raised up as they sit behind their two daughters and one son. They all wave politely at the audience, all of whom cheer wildly.

"Nava told me about them recently," Hila tells me in Hebrew. "That's the Elidonzo family. There's King Miguel and Queen Edite. Nava told me Queen Edite is from Portugal. Their eldest daughter is Isilda, who is going to marry Prince Yassine Harrak soon. Their youngest daughter is Anita."

I peer at Princess Anita and immediately think she is very pretty. Her expression is more welcoming than that of Isilda's and her features portray a strange mix of sensuality and innocence. Somehow, I think that Anita should be getting married instead of Isilda.

"And their son is Bruno," Hila says to me.

Celestina interrupts our conversation with her somewhat poor Arabic. "What is that gossip language you two speak?"

"You mean 'you three'," Luz replies before switching to rapid Espanyol.

Luz and Celestina continue to argue about the "gossip language" and I try to ignore them. I watch as the carriage of the royal family passes us, staring at Princess Anita as she waves to everyone. Now, granted, her siblings and parents are doing the same thing, but it seems more sincere when she does it, though I don't know why. She looks in my direction and I wave back without thinking about it. She turns away and I slouch a little, pouting due to her renewed absence.

"Adnan! Nosotros podemos visitar el Templo de La Fe Nueva?" Celestina asks.

I lean over to Luz. "Can you tell me what that means?"

"She wants to visit her temple for La Fe Nueva," Luz explains. "She does this a lot."

"Nosotros visitaremos más tarde," Eulalia says to Celestina.

Hila grabs my hand and looks in the direction of the carriages going away. Just as the last carriage passes, I see the strange, wealthy man smiling at the both of us before he disappears. Hila and I both shiver.

Adnan addresses everyone in that strange language and we all follow him in some direction. I stay close to Hila, Luz, and Witold and hear the others talking to each other in Espanyol. Hila is listening closely, perhaps trying to pick up a few words, and I decide I will simply ask Luz for translations.

"What did Eulalia say just then?" I ask.

"She said we can visit later," Luz explains. "Eulalia and Celestina will go to the temple tonight. All Feses pray at night."

We pass by a small house where a bunch of children play and a few women watch over them. There seems to be too many children for all of them to belong to the women, considering their age, and I wonder what the building is for. Adnan sees me staring and explains.

"Those two women care for orphans," Adnan says. "They work for the Temple. That orphanage aims to teach all those children about La Fe Nueva and the adults that come out tend to work for the Temple as well."

We return to Adnan's home and I see a few buildings filled with people who must work for the Temple. Some are teaching thin, dirty men various trades while others are handing out food to the poor. The way back to Adnan's was shorter than the way to the center of Madrid, but I notice that Hila and I do not have a whole lot of time to stay. We stop in front of Adnan's door and Hila tugs on my shirt.

"We have go home for Shabbat," Hila reminds me.

Luz remembers this as well and she and Hila start to head home. I notice Witold standing awkwardly by the door, waving goodbye to Hila, when I decide he should be allowed to spend more time with her. Somehow, I think it would annoy Hila a little, and I have more of a motive to do the following.

"Witold," I say to him in Arabic. "You want to come over for Shabbat dinner?"

He smiles and nods. "Yes. Thank you. I'd like that."


	8. Chapter 8

Hila

"Oh, you brought him over again," Ima says to me, referencing Witold. "That's so nice."

I don't tell her that it was Ariela who invited him. I know she did it to irritate me but it doesn't really work. Witold and I get along just fine during Shabbat dinner and for most of it, we've been talking about our respective faiths. He tells me of Aniela, a woman who was born shortly after the beginning of the Transformation, and of her visions coming from a goddess named Matcastara. Anielasm had three different types, according to him, and each side constantly argued about who was closer to Aniela's original doctrine. Witold also tells me that Aniela and her three future disciples were the only people to have refused the Maker of Deals and remain untouched. Of course, he says, the Clothilden and Arnauden Anielasts don't believe this.

Abba overhears our conversation. "At least your faith has only one god to keep track of. These La Fe Nueva people still confuse me."

"Don't judge them," Witold replies gently.

Nava and Matan have invited his brother Hillel and his wife Talia. They have a son named Chaim, who is not much older than Tziporah. Chaim soon learns that Tziporah, Ariela and I are in no way related to him. As the dinner proceeds, Chaim and Tziporah start conversing in fluent Hebrew. Luz can only understand parts of it, which frustrates her, so she goes back to talking to Ariela about Celestina.

"Ariela, Luz," I say to them. "Are you engaging in Lashon Hara?"

Ima and Abba had taught me well not to engage in Lashon Hara. Ariela, however, never quite got it, so she never had any reservations when it came to gossiping about others. Even now, I doubt Ariela and Luz will stop their conversation.

"What is Lashon Hara?" Witold asks me.

I turn to him and explain. "Lashon Hara is saying bad things about someone, even if they're true. Ariela does it more than she should."

"Luz does it too," Witold tells me. "Often about Celestina, but sometimes about a few girls that go to her temple."

Now that Witold tells me about this synagogue, I'm curious as to its location and its atmosphere. Very few large ones exist and I've never been to most of them. I only vaguely remember one in Alustaa Maghreb, but it has since been torn down, and I've never gone to another one again. Our family feared an attack from the surrounding community too much to ever attend.

"Hila," Ariela says to me in Hebrew. "You have to admit Celestina is a little mean."

I sigh. "Can we change the subject?" I turn to Luz and switch back to Arabic. "Witold tells me you go to a temple?"

Luz shrugs. "Only for the High Holidays. Even then, it is a little dangerous."

I look over to see Tziporah and Chaim talking to each other about Arabic and Espanyol. Chaim translates Espanyol phrases for her and in return, she teaches him a little bit of Arabic. I wonder whether or not they would both like to attend Adnan's school, but I assume they have better things to do and prefer to learn from one another. I see Tziporah blush a little bit and Chaim invites her to a temple service tomorrow. She immediately says yes and I infer that there is something going on between these two already.

Meanwhile, Ima, Nava and Talia are talking about the things they cook for their families. Ima admits that we have moved around too much for her to cook often. Nava and Talia start telling Ima about Espanyan dishes and later switch to the naming of children and when they plan to have their next one. Nava sighs, admitting that she has been infertile since she had Luz, and wishes that Hashem would bless her with another child. Talia jokingly tells her that she should work for a Fes orphanage and adopt children there. All three women start laughing before they move on to the discussion of temple services.

Matan, Hillel and Abba discuss going to the synagogue as well and compare the types of liturgy they have seen. Abba starts to sing a hymn in one tune while Matan shows him a different tune for it and they soon playfully argue about whose tune is better. Hillel finds this all amusing and sits back, likely making bets as to who will win the argument.

Witold and I sit there silently, both tapping our fingers on the table, and I can tell that we're both waiting for Talia, Hillel and Chaim to leave. Talia looks outside and then nods to Hillel. Hillel lets in a deep breath before he grumbles something in Espanyol.

"Ahora?" Nava asks. "Por que vosotros no podéis quedarse?"

I don't make out the words for the rest of the conversation. Witold and I wait and watch as Hillel, Talia, and Chaim leave. Chaim seems reluctant to leave Tziporah, but Tziporah reminds him that they will be seeing each other tomorrow at the synagogue. Chaim smiles and agrees to leave with his family, though he gazes at Tziporah when he exits the house.

Witold lets out a quiet breath. "I have to go too. My parents probably want to know where I am."

"All right," I say. "Goodbye, Witold."

He walks to the door while everyone else cleans up for tonight. Ariela, being her usual lazy self, retires in our shared room while Luz helps Tziporah, Nava, and Ima in the kitchen. Abba and Matan help a little bit as well, though they could be doing more. That leaves me to watch Witold stop right outside the door and turn around to smile at me.

"Thanks for inviting me," he says in broken Arabic, as if it were me that brought him over rather than Ariela.

* * *

"You really want to attend a Jewish prayer service?" I ask Witold when he arrives at our house the next morning.

I notice there are no holes in his garments and his shirt isn't particularly wrinkled. His hair is less tangled, his face is cleaner, and his sleeves actually cover his entire arms. At the collar, I notice black embroidery, which I've wanted to learn how to do, and I wonder where he got these clothes.

"Can you attend one Anielast service?" Witold asks me.

"If my Abba allows it," I reply.

He scratches his head. "Abba?"

"It means Father in Hebrew," I explain.

All of us are dressed in our nicer clothes and Ariela and I had to borrow clean shirts from Luz. Ariela had decided to wear a new vest Luz got her, which had black embroidery on the collar and hides terrible stains that one would otherwise see on her torso. I notice she isn't particularly enthusiastic about attending services today. I hope that the services won't be more than two hours. I don't think she can last any longer than that.

We all step outside the house and Nava examines Luz's clothes, making sure she looks good enough. Ima and Tziporah do that with Ariela and I before the women inspect their husbands. I look over at Witold, who glances up and down at me with a smile, and I wonder what he is thinking about.

"You look nice," Witold says before nervously scratching his neck. "Not that you don't look nice all the time."

"Uhh, thank you," I reply.

I inspect my own clothes, fixing little parts of it here and there and adjusting my skirt before I deem it satisfactory. Matan and Nava lead the way to the temple and we all follow them. Witold walks behind me and we converse a little on the way to break any awkward silence that may occur.

"How is your Espanyol?" Witold asks me.

"Not very good," I reply. "I know 'Hola', 'Adios', 'Como se llama' and… 'Judía Sucia'."

Witold looks down. We both know what the last phrase means; everyone in Espanya has heard it at least once and Luz had told Ariela and I that she had been called that by strangers on many occasions. Celestina hadn't unleashed the slur on any of us yet, but I don't doubt that she would use it later on, and further thoughts on the subject become uncomfortable.

Ahead of us, Tziporah coughs again. Her health hasn't been as good as it was a couple of weeks before, when we first arrived to Espanya. She has been in and out of a cold and Ima told me not to worry, but I can't help but think that this is unusual and part of a larger problem. Tziporah had told me that, if it got any worse, she would consult a local doctor.

The temple isn't as far as I thought it would be. When we arrive, I see that it is rather small and could look like any regular sized house. I wonder how many of us would attend this chapel and hope that there is enough room for all of us in there. When we enter, I realize that there was plenty.

I look at both sides of the mechitza and find the side with all of the women. Luz, Ariela, Nava, Ima and Tziporah proceed to that side while Abba and Matan go to the other. Witold shuffles his feet as he follows them and chooses a seat closest to the mechitza. I do the same on my side and we look over it. The mechitza isn't high enough to obscure our vision of one another completely. I can tell that he's grateful for this by the way he smiles and waves at me in a subtle manner. We both look in front of us and see that tall people are sitting in front of us and hiding us from the sight of the rabbi who, to my surprise, is a woman.

"That's Rabbi Alona Spinoza," Luz tells me. "Next to her is Cantor Boaz Rentas. He's a funny man."

I look around and notice that siddurim are being passed around. I look over and see Abba refuse one, as he had brought his own, and observe groups of three sharing siddurim. Luz, Ariela and I share one while Nava, Ima, and Tziporah huddle around another. Witold peeks at the pages of it before he looks straight ahead at the man blocking his view. He turns to me and smiles. I smile back before looking at the prayer book, trying to figure out where we were starting off in the service. I notice that the prayers are both in Hebrew and Espanyol and I wonder if I can take a copy home in order to study the language.

We start off with Modeh Ani, a prayer I'm not particularly interested in, and I'm glad that it was a short one. I generally prefer Mah Tovu, which is coming up soon, and recite the words quietly to myself to make sure I remember them.

I listen to the tunes of the prayers, which are slightly different from the ones I've heard, and I try to learn them quickly. Soon enough, I hear people clapping while they sing and I can't help but join in. Witold does this as well, despite that he doesn't know the words to the songs, and we both huddle closer to the mechitza so we can converse.

"When do I ask your dad if I can bring you to my chapel?" Witold asks me.

"After all this," I reply.

Just then, I hear Tziporah accidentally push a chair inches to her right. Her hand covers her stomach and she bends over slightly, shuffling her feet towards the exit. For a moment, everyone looks at her and she tries to leave the room while making little sound. The Rabbi attempts to get everyone else's attention and Tziporah manages to exit the room without distracting everybody.

Nava and Ima look at each other in worry and Nava nods at her, signaling that she is free to check on her daughter. Ima walks outside and, over the mechitza, I see Witold and Abba glance back to figure out what is going on. I notice Chaim Ben-Alhazzan from the Shabbat dinner among the men and see that he is also curious as to Tziporah's condition. I decide to exit the small temple and find out what was happening to Tziporah. As I go through the front door of the building, I see Tziporah bending over near a disposal bin, barfing into the container.

Once I go up to her, Chaim and Witold appear behind me, watching as Tziporah heaves up what was left of her breakfast. A few people on the street watch us. We try to ignore their gaze and Tziporah stops puking for a moment, allowing her to stand up completely again. Ima takes out a small handkerchief, giving it to Tziporah to wipe her mouth, and looks at Chaim, Witold, and I.

"Can you take her home?" Ima asks Chaim and I in Hebrew, then to Witold in Arabic. "I'll tell the others where you're going."

We all nod and Chaim allows Tziporah to use him as a support when she walks. Chaim leads us on a shortcut to the house and we manage to avoid most of the people running business outside, which I am thankful for, as I know Tziporah doesn't need several people staring at her while she's sick. Witold holds my hand and I don't bother refusing him. I'm too worried about Tziporah to care about what Witold wants.

"How long have you been sick?" Chaim asks Tziporah.

"I don't know," she replies. "I'd get sick, then get better, and then I'm sick again."

We finally get to the house and she slightly stumbles upon entering it. Chaim makes sure she remains stable while Witold and I look for cloths and some water. Strangely enough, I start to hope the service will end soon.

"I'm tired," Tziporah sighs. "I need to go to my room."

Chaim helps her to her room. Witold finds a small ceramic mug and looks for a source of water. I find a few small clothes in case Tziporah needs to wet them in order to treat a fever. If not, she could use them to wipe her mouth if she barfs again. Knowing that she might do so soon, I look for a pitcher or bucket of some sort to have ready for her so she doesn't get vomit all over the floor. Soon enough, I find a bucket near the place Witold finds water, which is a well owned by a neighbor. I use the bucket to get water, Witold puts some in the ceramic mug, and I dump the rest so I can take the bucket inside.

We return to Tziporah with the cloths, mug of water, and a bucket. She lies on her side and takes one cloth, dips it in the water, and wipes her forehead. Just after, she falls asleep and we all sit there quietly, watching for any signs of her waking up and needing to barf.

"He seems to like you," Chaim says to me in Hebrew.

"Not you too," I reply. "I hear it from my cousin and my sister all too often."

Witold seems annoyed by his inability to understand us, which only amuses me, and I continue talking to Chaim in Hebrew. I no longer wanted the conversation to pertain to Witold and I, so I mention whatever happened yesterday during our Shabbat dinner.

"What about you and Tziporah?" I ask him.

"What about us?"

I grin a little bit. "I saw you two last night."

Chaim raises an eyebrow and flashes me a condescending look. "Who are you to ask me about my relationships? You're, what, ten?"

"Eleven," I reply.

Witold reclines and breathes deeply, somewhat bored by whatever we were doing. I wonder what he is even doing here is this bored him so terribly, but I don't ask him, as I don't want to cause conflict. Finally, he says something.

"What are you two talking about?" he asks.

"Nothing you need to know," I tell him in Arabic. "I think you should be getting home soon."

Witold sighs, clearly wishing he could stay longer, and gets up to leave. I walk with him to the front door and watch him exit the house. As usual, he turns to me to say goodbye.

"Bye, Hila," he says.

"Bye, Witold," I reply and close the door before I return to my sister and to my anxieties concerning her illness.


	9. Chapter 9

Ariela

Hila, Witold, Chaim, and Tziporah had missed the service because Tziporah's health was getting worse. Our mom had chosen to stay behind with our dad and everyone else, but Luz and I no longer wanted to be stuck there while Hila, Witold and Chaim got to skip all of this. Both Luz and I had thought that Tziporah's health was the perfect excuse to leave early and we both decided to get out, but first, we had to ask our parents.

"Ima," I whisper quietly. "Can Luz and I go check on Tziporah at the house?"

"Chaim and Hila are there with her," she replies.

Luz pushes me aside to ask for permission from her mother, who was standing next to mine. She whispers for permission from her and upon hearing it granted, she nudges me, notifying me that we could both leave. The service had seemed interminable and I was glad that we managed to get out of the chapel earlier than everyone else. Once we both get out of there, she tells me that we weren't going home immediately.

"Where would we go?" I now ask.

She stands still for a moment, thinking of what to do. "We can visit Jumana and Shimon. We can visit El Templo and see where Celestina and Eulalia like to pray."

"Oh no," I protest. "What makes you think I would want to go near there?"

"We'll see Celestina telling little children all about their gods," Luz tells me before imitating Celestina in Espanyol. "Corifai y Vismatrina son los dios que crearon los Dios Mayores. Los Dios Mayores…"

"You can stop now," I say. "Now take me some place interesting."

She shrugs. "All right. I can show you where Witold lives. He lives with his family in a place poorer than ours. Celestina lives near there, too, but she doesn't like saying so."

I agree to venture with her into one of the poorest parts of our neighborhood in Madrid. Luz tells me that we live in a neighborhood called Carabanchel, which was notably less well off than other districts financially. I take a mental note to ask Jumana more about Espanya later, mostly because when we got home, too many people would surround me and I didn't want that when I asked private questions. Any question I asked when I wanted to know more about something I considered private. If I didn't, Hila would probably try to answer all of my questions, or worse, compete with me on how inquisitive she was. Eventually I would end up wanting to punch her. Of course, I can't. She's my sister.

"I know this woman who has a pregnant cat," Luz says. "Maybe she had her babies."

"Ew," I reply. "Tiny cats? They'll be really gross."

She gives me an odd look. "Since when do people not like little cats?"

I sighs and she takes me there anyway. The streets in that part of town are filthier and it stinks terribly. I somehow am able to taste the filth in the back of my mouth and I wonder if plugging my nose while breathing with my mouth would stop it. I am worried that I would get as sick as Tziporah, but Luz reassures me that no such thing would happen. I take another look around, seeing that the homes look like shantytowns. I encounter a few boney dogs barking at me and immediately hide behind Luz, who seems amused by this.

"What?" she asks. "Scared of dogs?"

I say no and we go through a few streets in that part of the neighborhood. Still, I remain close to Luz whenever a scrawny canine started to bark at us aggressively. Finally, we get to the house where the woman and the pregnant cat stayed. I hope that we wouldn't stay there for long; Luz promised me that she would take me to where Witold lives.

A fat, older woman with missing teeth comes out the door of a shanty house with a small basket in her arms. A large spotted cat walks beside her feet, appearing from underneath her skirt, and looks at us with skepticism. Luz reaches down to pet her and she starts to purr while the woman had let Luz look inside the basket. By the way Luz fawns over the basket's contents, I can tell she was seeing little kittens.

"Aw," Luz coos over the kittens. "Los gatitos son muy lindos!"

"Es verdad?" the woman asks. "La gata dio a luz hace una semana."

Luz giggles a little. "Hehehe, Luz."

The woman looks inside her box and saw the kittens meowing, so she places it by the grown cat listening to her babies' cries. Immediately, the grown cat leaps into the box and feeds her kittens.

"Tu debes esperar," the woman says. "Hasta los gatitos tienen por lo menos cuatro semanas."

"Cuatro semanas?" Luz asks, sounding puzzled and disappointed.

"Si," the woman says. "Quien es tu amiga?"

"Es mi prima," Luz replies, pointing to me. "Se llama Ariela."

I stand there, occasionally glancing to make sure a scrawny dog wouldn't come out of nowhere. The place starts to smell worse, which gives me more of a motive to leave, and I still want to figure out where Witold lived. Somehow, I had thought that Witold would still be with Hila, Chaim, and Tziporah. I want to get out of that place immediately, but the woman, all of the sudden, decides to get my attention.

"Hola, Ariela," the woman says. "Cuánto tiempo usted ha vivido aqui?"

"Señora," Luz replies, shaking her hands, as if to deny something. "Ariela sólo habla Árabe."

The woman nods and she and Luz exchange a few more words before Luz takes me further down the dirty road. A few unpleasant looking children with dirty faces splash brown water at each other while some adults in the distance argue about something that was probably stupid. When Luz and I get out of earshot for that woman, I pull her close to me so I could speak to her easily without her constantly asking what I was saying.

"Luz," I ask her. "What were you and that woman saying?"

"She asked who you were so I said you were my cousin," she replies. "She asked you how long have you lived here and I told her you only speak Arabic."

"But I speak Hebrew too," I respond.

She gives me the kind of look where one knows they did something dumb. Luz is few steps ahead of me and I stand there rather stupidly. Slowly, she returns to my side and starts whispering to me while occasionally glancing around with caution.

"Ariela," Luz almost growls at me. "You, of all people, should know well what a danger it is to speak such a language."

"You can't trust that woman?" I ask her loudly in Hebrew.

Luz huffs before looking around, seeing if anyone had been looking at us. Most people are too busy dealing with their own problems to notice what language I had spoken, which was a better reaction to my speech than I usually got back in the Maghreb nations. Luz appears uncomfortable, which somehow manages to piss me off. I had received much worse reactions than the apathy of the general public. I have no idea what she was complaining about.

"Not really," Luz replies in Arabic. "She doesn't know what we believe in. She thinks I will go to El Templo soon. Before you and Hila came here, she asked why I didn't go with Celestina and Eulalia to services at night."

I almost have to laugh. "Luz, my family and I have been thrown out of several homes for what we do and you think what _you_ have is bad? You have a stable house! You actually have a temple you can go to for Shabbat!"

"A temple _you _were eager to leave," Luz retorts.

"At least you have something to be bored _of_!" I reply.

Luz glares at me. "Why are you even fighting with me? I only told you why I didn't tell that woman about you speaking Hebrew."

I cross my arms. "You're making this a larger issue than it actually is. So what if she knows I speak Hebrew. What would she do? Refuse to give you a cat?"

Luz turns around and starts walking away without me. I decide that I don't care, as I don't need her to guide me back to the house. I can retrace my steps back to the chapel and then get home. I don't know where she is headed, but I don't care, and I head back to the chapel. All of the sudden, I worry that the service might be over and our parents would return to find that we hadn't gone straight home after all.

I go back and see the scrawny dogs fighting over a bone with marrow spilling out one side. Immediately, I get nervous and walk backward slowly only to trip over a large stick. I fall straight on my ass and my elbow lands in a filthy puddle that I'm sure contains feces. The stench makes me nearly throw up.

Another scrawny dog runs up to me and I see a young boy in the distance walking toward the dog. I move myself away from the puddle while the dog growls at me, which causes me to get up quickly and sprint in the direction of the chapel. As I run, I think of first time I was chased by dogs.

Tziporah had been twelve at the time and Hila and I had been only six, as far as I know. We had been in a marketplace in Alustaa Maghreb, buying a small present for our mother, when someone had accused Tziporah of stealing. Tziporah had been trying to bargain with someone for a small necklace. When the man selling it had turned around, a young boy we didn't know had taken it and scurried away before the man saw it was missing. Of course, he had blamed it on Tziporah.

"You thief!" he had shouted.

"I didn't take it!" she had cried. Hila and I had been clinging to her skirt while my arm was wrapped around my twin.

"Liar!" he had shouted. He had almost abandoned his stand of necklaces in order to search her bag, but Tziporah grabbed our hands and ran with us to avoid him. The man had injured his knee earlier, so he couldn't run after us. Instead, he released two previously hidden dogs he had tied to a pole.

As far as I remember, the dogs were large, unusually strong, and frighteningly fast. Tziporah had practically yanked our arms to get us to run faster, Hila had been screaming, and I had been panting and aching in my abdomen. Tziporah had been yelling for our parents. The dogs had gained on us, growling and barking, and when Tziporah had accidentally released my hand, I had tripped.

When I had managed to get up, all I could see was the larger dog baring its teeth and letting out an intimidating sound. The smaller one had been standing a little farther from me. I had been paralyzed in fear and, had Tziporah not grabbed my hand and gotten me to run away again, that large dog would have bit my neck.

At some point, I look behind me and I realize I'm not six years old, I'm not running away from a large muscular dog, and I'm not in Alustaa Maghreb. I'm in Espanya, I'm eleven, and the bony dog was carrying the stick back to the boy, wagging its tail happily. I breathe in slowly and continue walking. I start to wonder if Witold was still at the house with Hila. If Hila somehow managed to find a reason to get Witold out of the house, I think I would die from laughing.

I make it back to the chapel and still hear the smooth, collective voices chanting in prayer, which means that it is not yet noon and I can still return to the house on time. My parents, aunt, and her husband might ask where Luz is, but that is not my current concern, and I amuse myself with the thought that she would have to answer for herself. I started to feel uncomfortable with the thought of picking a fight with her in the first place, but I try not to let it control me. My main objective now is to get home to Hila, Tziporah and Chaim.

I try to retrace my steps from here and worry a little bit about getting lost. _You won't get lost, _I think to myself, _you managed to find your way out of the poorest part of Carabanchel or whatever it's called. _I relax a little bit, roll up my sleeves so no one would see the shit-puddle stain on my elbow, and continue walking home. The walk wasn't a long one, but it wasn't pleasant either. It was still noisy on the streets.

I see the strange man that we had encountered almost a month ago on the ferry talking to a scantily clad woman with a wide smile and assume he's asking for her services. She thrusts her chest forward and takes his hand, walking in the direction of some run-down house. The man follows her and looks to his side, which allows him to see me. I immediately start running home out of fear.

I make it home and almost burst through the door. After closing it behind me, I look for Tziporah in her room, where I find her, Hila and Chaim. After noticing that Witold isn't there, I wonder if a conflict arose between him and Hila. I wouldn't be surprised. If a boy had a crush on me like he did her, I would slap him.

"Witold's not here?" I ask Hila.

"No," she answers. "I asked him to leave about an hour ago. Why are you home?"

I take a seat beside Tziporah, who has a cold cloth covering her forehead. I notice a bucket with a bit of vomit dripping down the side and wonder how many times she has thrown up since she left the chapel. Chaim holds one of her hands while she lies on her side. Hila sits opposite of Chaim, picking at her toenails.

"Luz and I asked our parents if we could come home and see how Tziporah is doing," I reply. "Now I don't know where Luz is."

Hila gives me a look, which I'm not surprised about. She suspects that I'm lying, which is only partially the truth, and I'm expecting her to ask more. Instead, she takes the cloth and dips it in water from a mug before she places it on Tziporah's head again.

"So why did you make Witold leave?"

Hila shrugs. "I was just irritated. I needed him gone."

I giggle a bit. "Finally he leaves you alone."

Hila ignores the comment and takes the vomit-filled bucket outside to dump it. When Hila leaves the room, Tziporah turns to her other side to face me. She uses the cloth to wipe her face and smiles.

"Now where is Luz, really?"

I try not to think about my previous argument with her. "We went to find out where Witold lived and then I came back while she was talking to some woman about getting a kitten."

"A kitten?" Tziporah asks. "I've been told Luz loves animals."

"The kittens weren't that cute, really," I reply.

Hila returns with a clean bucket and sits down beside me, leaning her head on mine. Tziporah yawns and starts to fall asleep. I hope that whatever she has doesn't get any worse, but I expect the worst anyway, and I stay there with Hila and Chaim until either Luz or our parents get home.

Strangely enough, Tziporah's health goes into a quick rebound a few days later. She stops barfing the day after the Shabbat service and the day after, she isn't sick at all. None of us were sure about why this happened, but we are all grateful for it. Chaim and Tziporah are also spending a lot of time together, which amuses me greatly.

Luz and I haven't really talked to each other since our day in the poorest part of Carabanchel. I didn't even get to see where Witold lives, which disappointed me, and I decide today that I'm going to attend Adnan El-Amin's school and find Witold then. I'll ask about any siblings he has and then ask to meet them, which should get me to his house by the end of today. In any case, I would need to start learning Espanyol if I were to live here permanently, even though I hate learning languages.

We are all sitting around, eating breakfast. Luz sits next to Hila while Tziporah sits next to me. The parents are all sitting near each other, talking about how lovely the service was a few days ago, and Luz and Hila are practicing Espanyol.

"So, tell me what 'hello' is," Luz says.

"Hola."

Luz smiles. "And goodbye?"

Hila finishes chewing on a piece of bread and answers her. "Adios."

Luz takes a bite of her bread and continues to talk while chewing. "And 'how are you'?"

"Cómo está usted?"

Luz's mother, Nava, takes notice and offers to help Hila learn Espanyol. "How would you say… hmm… 'I want food'?"

Luz sits still for a moment, thinking. "Yo que-ro…"

Matan shakes his head, his hand on Nava's. "No. It's _qui_ero."

Hila starts again. "Yo _qui_ero comida."

We all hear a knock on the door and Matan gets up to answer it. The rest of us continue eating and Luz still helps Hila with her Espanyol. Hila has somehow progressed into being able to name foods.

"So what is bread?"

Hila pauses and looks at the loaf in the center of the table. "In Espanyol? I don't really know."

"It's 'pan', Hila," Luz replies, pretending to be annoyed. "That was the one food you knew."

Ahead of us, Matan opens the door to find a woman with a small basket standing there, dressed in a black dress and an off-white frilly cape and her hair is tied back in a braid. Overall, she looks like she is well off financially. I am surprised by how pale her skin is. It looks ghostly. The last thing I notice is that she looks strangely familiar.

"Hola," says the woman. "Me llamo Dulce Santos. Usted y su familia pueden dar un Tributo Santo para apoyar El Templo?

Matan looks at my dad before he looks up and down at the woman, laughing as he shuts the door in her face.


	10. Chapter 10

Hila

There is another knock on the door. Matan looks at Abba, expressing annoyance with him, and turns around to open the door again. The woman is still there, the basket in her hands, a hopeful smile on her face, and childlike eyes staring at Luz's father. Matan sighs heavily and tries to be more patient with the woman.

"Se llama Dulce, verdad?" Matan asks the woman.

"Si!" the woman replies. "Y yo necesito juntar dinero, específicamente Tributos Santos, por El Templo."

"El Tributo Santo es un donación o impuesto religioso?" Matan asks.

"La Asociación no me dijo."

Matan looks around at everyone and we all shrug. For Tziporah, Ariela, Abba and I, it's a matter of not understanding what the woman was saying. Luz, Ima and Nava look at each other and back at Matan. Matan returns his gaze to the woman, sighs, and takes out a few coins from his pockets to give to her.

"Es bueno?" he asks tiredly.

"Si, si, gracias," the woman says, nodding with grace and leaving.

As soon as Matan closes the door, Abba demands to know what the woman wants.

"Her name was Dulce Santos," Matan explains in Hebrew. "Apparently, she's collecting 'Holy Tributes' for El Templo. I asked her if it was a donation or a religious tax, but she claims not to know."

Abba huffs. "Lies. She knows, she knows all right!"

"Then it's probably a religious tax," Matan replies. "Which seems odd, considering La Fe Nueva says that the rich should be donating to the poor. All the wealthy here are Feses."

I look at Ariela, who seems to be paying attention to half the conversation, and at Luz, who seems anxious to leave the house. Tziporah listens to the conversation for a little bit before becoming lost in her thoughts with a smile. I assume she is thinking about Chaim again.

"You want to go to the school?" Luz asks me.

I nod. "Sure. Ariela, you want to come?"

Ariela shakes her head. "I think I might go to Jumana's house."

Ima overhears us and looks at Ariela with a curious look. "Ariela, do you know your way there?"

Again, Ariela shakes her head. We haven't been to Jumana's home in over a month, though Jumana occasionally comes over here to talk to Abba. I don't know why Ariela all of the sudden wants to go to her home. She hasn't expressed any sort of fondness for conversing with adults before, let alone with Jumana. I also notice that Luz and Ariela haven't been talking for the past few days. What happened when I left the service early a few days ago?

"Luz," Nava asks her daughter. "Tu puedes mostrar a Ariela el camino a casa de Jumana?"

"Si, mama," Luz responds before speaking to Ariela. "My Ima said I have to show you the way to Jumana's house."

Ariela grumbles a little bit and says. "I'll stay here for a little while."

The adults look at her strangely, as does Luz, and Ariela goes back to finishing what is left of her meal. Luz then pokes me and gets up from her chair. She goes to her room, returns with two worn out jackets, tosses one to me, and motions for me to follow her out the door. I hurriedly put on the garment as I walk with her. I don't want to walk alone to the school.

"Did something happen between you and Ariela?" I ask Luz once we are a good distance away from the house.

Luz sighs. "Nothing big. We're just annoyed with each other right now."

"Well, why?" I ask.

"We had a small fight after you left the chapel a few days ago," she answers. "I'm over it, but Ariela doesn't want to talk to me."

I hold Luz's hand as we walk. As Luz takes me to the school, I think of different things that could have started a conflict between her and Ariela. It could have been as simple as what type of bread is better, knowing my twin sister. She's willing to pick a fight with anyone at any time. I'm half-convinced that she stole that strange man's knife over a month ago for that reason.

"What was the fight about?" I ask.

"Ariela and I went to a woman who had little kittens," Luz explains. "She asks about Ariela and I say that Ariela only speaks Arabic. Later, I tell Ariela what I told the woman and she asks why I didn't say she spoke Hebrew as well."

I shrug. "That makes sense. Why tell anyone we speak Hebrew? Right away, people would know what we are."

Luz sighs. "That woman asks why we don't go to services with Celestina and Eulalia. I told Ariela this and she just laughed."

_Ariela, why?_ I sulk, knowing that Ariela will get into more conflicts with other people here in Espanya. She'll probably get into a fistfight at one point and get in trouble with the authorities, which will just put our entire family through misery. Worst-case scenario, she'll be charged for a serious crime and be put in prison. That almost happened in Alustaa Maghreb.

"She said I had nothing to complain about because she had it worse where she came from. At that point, we walked away from each other."

"That explains why Ariela came home without you that day," I reply.

She pulls my hand toward another direction and I see the strange man from the ferry with a scantily clad blonde woman. We spy on them flirting and some adults tell their children to avert their eyes. It would have been smarter for the pair to do their business at night.

"That is Celestina's sister," Luz tells me. "Her name is Herminia."

"Celestina's sister is a prostitute?" I ask, surprised. "That's not something she would want us to know."

Luz chuckles. "Of course not. Her family shuns Herminia. It's a long story."

We see Herminia and the strange man walk together, discussing something neither of us are aware of, and we continue to spy on them for the next five or ten minutes. At one point, they enter a vacant house and we stop tracking them. We head to Adnan's house again and Luz tells me about Herminia and Celestina.

"Celestina and Herminia were close when we were young. When the King and Queen showed the people La Fe Nueva, the family became Feses very quickly."

"Let me guess," I reply as we stroll together. "Herminia didn't want to convert."

Luz shrugs. "I guess she never wanted to go into El Templo. That's why she doesn't want help from them."

We are close to Adnan's house and I see Celestina walk through the front door with Eulalia behind her. Celestina seems upset by something and Eulalia seems to be comforting her as well as she can. I wonder if it is related to Herminia being nearby at this time and hope to find out soon because, as much as I don't like Celestina, I don't want her to be crying all day.

We enter the house and see that Adnan isn't there. Eulalia is still trying to comfort Celestina, Armelle and Ihsan are fighting over the book with the Maker of Deals story, Diego is busy watching Emilio, and Witold has not come yet. I look over at Luz, who now sports a sinister smile, and she approaches Celestina with a somewhat haughty gait.

"Vimos tu hermana," Luz says to Celestina. "Herminia, verdad?"

Celestina grimaces at the mention of Herminia. Eulalia gives Luz a stern look and I assume that Luz has crossed the line in terms of whatever they were discussing. I really hope she doesn't bring me into this. I don't want Celestina to hate us more than she already does.

"Tu hermana estuvo con un hombre extraño," Luz continues. "El tuvo sólo ropa negra.

"No quiero saber sobre el hombre extraño," Celestina replies. "Pare hablar sobre lo."

"What's happening?" I ask in Arabic.

Celestina glares at me, her eyes a little bit red, and Luz puts a hand on her hip. Luz must think all of this is amusing, otherwise she wouldn't have a smirk on her face. I can tell that Luz was taunting Celestina by mentioning her sister. Just by my association with Luz, I'm sure Celestina doesn't trust me.

"Stay out of it," she manages to translate. "You don't know anything."

"I know it's about Herminia," I reply. "Otherwise Luz wouldn't be trying to provoke you with it."

Again, Celestina grimaces at the sound of her sister's name and then pauses, trying to figure out what I was saying. Eulalia stands there, looking at me, and I scratch my neck. Everyone here is clearly uncomfortable, even the kids that have no idea what is going on.

Diego lets Emilio play with Armelle and Ihsan while he investigates the situation. He doesn't get too close to us; instead, he sits on a small box some distance away. As soon as he sits down, everyone pretends not to notice him there, and we continue on with this conflict of ours.

"What do you know of my sister?" Celestina hesitantly asks me.

"I know she was with a strange man this morning," I reply, not wanting her to know that I know of Herminia's occupation. "And I met that man once before. Somehow, I don't think your sister is safe with him."

Celestina raises an eyebrow. "Why do you care about my sister?"

I scratch my neck again. "That man she was with, he wears all black, he stinks, and he doesn't seem _right_ in the head. I don't know who he is, but he doesn't seem normal."

"I'll remember that," Celestina says rather harshly, though she still looks vulnerable. For a second, it seemed like she doesn't hate me.

Diego seems annoyed by our conflict and walks away before warning us that Adnan is at the door. I walk away slowly, seeing the doorknob twist, when I hear Luz whisper something to Celestina in an antagonistic manner.

"Hila sabe que tu hermana chupa vergas," Luz taunts Celestina.

"Pare!" Celestina yells as she throws a small, unknown object at her.

Adnan El-Amin walks in just as Celestina does so, which angers him, and he yells at her to stop. Celestina huffs and isolates herself in a corner. Whatever Luz said obviously provoked Celestina. Now I wonder who is the real "bitch" here.

"Ustedes lucharán todo el día o ustedes quieren aprender?" he snaps at them.

It's obvious that he is reprimanding them. I try not to get in his way and sit on the carpet where all the students are supposed to be. Everyone except Celestina sits beside me and Adnan takes a seat on an old stool, sighing from what seems to be stress. He takes the book of tales from his shelf, only leaning forward to do so, and opens to a random page.

"I will read in Arabic," Adnan says. "That way, you get used to hearing it."

"Pero eso es un libro en Espanyol," Armelle replies.

"I will say it in Arabic anyway," Adnan responds.

Adnan clears his throat and I look around, wondering where Ariela and Witold are. I figure that they did not want to come in today and go back to seeing what Adnan is doing. He scans a page with his figure and then raises it, indicating that he found his place.

"We will read the story of the Northern Islands," Adnan announces.

All of the sudden, Ariela and Witold arrive. Everyone turns to see them and Ariela looks self-conscious due to their gaze, but Witold only looks at me. He immediately takes a seat next to me and Ariela looks around for a bit, noticing that Celestina has isolated herself from everybody. Ariela doesn't think much of it and sits by Diego, who ignores her. Adnan scratches his beard and starts reading and translating simultaneously.

"The Northern Islands are part of the Destroyed World," Adnan says. "They somehow were friends with the large nation across the sea, but the two islands somehow didn't get along. Even parts of one island didn't get along. They spoke strange languages too. The inhabitants of the eastern island spoke Inglés, Escocés, Gaélico Escocés, and Galés."

I have never heard of these names for languages and assume that they are in Espanyol. I don't know many Arabic or Hebrew names for languages either and I start to wonder what names these languages have for themselves. For example, I know that Hebrew calls itself Ivrit.

"The inhabitants of the western island spoke Inglés and Irlandés," Adnan continues. "What these languages sound like, we don't know. We can only guess what happened to the people who lived there after the Transformation."

Ihsan raises his hand and starts talking before Adnan gives his permission. "I heard of Inglés before. My father said that people everywhere used to speak it."

"Sabes que," Armelle says before being interrupted.

"In Arabic," Adnan instructs her.

Armelle pauses for a little bit before she speaks. "Do you know what it sounds like, Ihsan?"

"Yes!" he announces. "It sounds like this. Welablakeh meh!"

Emilio, who had previously been very quiet, starts laughing rather loudly, which makes Ihsan chortle in response. Celestina barely comes out of her corner and giggles before she rejoins the group, opting to sit next to Eulalia. Soon enough, Ariela, Luz, and Witold are chuckling. Only Diego and I remain calm.

Everyone calms down after a little while and Adnan gets their attention so he can read more from his book of tales. Emilio and Ihsan are still a little giggly after all this, but Adnan excuses it, and he continues reading and translating.

"We think that the Maker of Deals may have come from the Northern Islands," he says. "Or he could have originated from the nation across the sea. We don't know for sure, but we can tell he is part of the fallen world."

I think more about this Maker of Deals and wonder if he is actually real. If so, the strange man on the ferry might have been him and Celestina's sister might be in trouble.

* * *

It is noon and Adnan dismisses us so he can pray. I see Celestina and Eulalia head toward El Templo together. Emilio and Ihsan stay in the room with Adnan, not wanting to return home alone, and Diego and Armelle follow Luz, Witold, Ariela and I around. I know Ariela has wanted to find out where Witold lives, so we head in that direction with Witold leading the way. We pass through the part of Carabanchel that Luz told me about this morning. I see Ariela wince at the sight of a couple of scrawny dogs and hold her hand in order to comfort her. Armelle has the same reaction as Ariela, so we huddle close together. Diego, of course, finds all of this amusing.

"Donde _vives_, Witold?" Diego asks, looking around and crinkling his nose.

"Cercano aqui," Witold replies.

I almost step in a mud puddle when we all see Herminia and the strange man. Ariela grips my hand tightly, telling me we should avoid him at all costs. Immediately, she and I hide behind the rest of the group, hoping that the man doesn't see us. The strange man disappears, leaving Herminia all alone, and we relax. Herminia sees us and approaches us quickly.

"Perdón," Herminia asks Witold. "Usted ha visto una niña? Se llama Celestina Maradona?"

Witold shrugs. "Nosotros vimos Celestina cuando ella y Eulalia fueron a El Templo."

Herminia hears "El Templo" and hesitates before asking anything else. After hearing "Celestina" come out of Herminia's mouth, Ariela is suddenly interested in what is going on. Most of us look at Herminia with curiosity. From that, I assume that these children's parents don't let them go out at night, when most prostitutes are active.

"El Templo?" Herminia nervously asks.

"Si," Witold replies and I realize I understand that it means, "yes".

"Wait, how does she know Celestina?" Ariela asks Luz in Hebrew.

"Herminia is her sister," Luz replies.

Ariela struggles not to laugh. "You mean Celestina's sister is a _prostitute_? This is too good!"

Luckily, Herminia can't understand anything Ariela is saying. She simply bites her lip, processing what Witold tells her, and looks in the direction of El Templo. Something tells me she isn't too happy about having to go there in order to see Celestina.

"Usted puede decir a mi hermana que yo quiero hablar con ella?"

Witold nods. Herminia seems comforted and walks away, reuniting with that strange man. Ariela grips my hand again, making us hide behind the rest of the group. Herminia and the strange man walk together, opposite the direction of El Templo, and Witold goes back to leading us to his house. Witold makes sure to take us on a shortcut so we don't encounter Herminia or the strange man again. If we ran into him another time, I think Ariela would have squeezed my hand so hard, half of it would be detached from the rest of my body.

As a result, we bypass the woman with the kittens that Luz told me about and go straight to Witold's house. It looks a little better than the other houses in this part of Carabanchel, but it seems to be the same size as everyone else's. The small door swings open and a girl about Armelle's age appears. When she turns to face us, I immediately see the resemblance between her and Witold. Aside from obvious differences in gender, they look almost exactly alike. I can only assume that the child is his sister.

"Hola, Kaja," Witold says to her, pronouncing her name Kai-ah. "Ellos son mis amigos."

"Hila es la gemela con ojos verdes, verdad?" Kaja asks, staring at me when she speaks.

I only pick up my name and "ojos verdes". Luz has been teaching me the names of my body parts and colors, rigorously quizzing me on the terms each night, and I now memorized them. I realize that Kaja has pointed out my green eyes, which are rare in the Maghreb nations, and I start to feel self-conscious. However, to these children, they aren't so unusual.

"Tienes razón, Witold," Kaja tells her brother. "Hila es muy hermosa."

The kids in our group giggle and look at either me or Witold. Diego nudges Witold playfully, further embarrassing him, Armelle takes an immediate liking to Kaja, and Luz and Ariela whisper mocking comments to me in Hebrew. I have almost no understanding of the language Kaja uses with her brother, but I'm certain that she is talking about his infatuation with me.

Kaja and Armelle already start talking to each other about Hashem knows what, which makes me assume that almost everyone here knows his family to some extent. Only Ariela and I are unfamiliar with his home life, which is surprising, considering we have been here for over a month. I watch as Kaja and Armelle talk about a doll Kaja holds in her hand and a woman comes through the door that Kaja emerged from moments ago. Again, I evaluate the resemblance between the woman and Witold and deduce that she is his mother.

"Witold," the woman says, pointing to me. "Ella es Hila?"

At this point, both Witold and I are blushing furiously.

"Matka, pare, por favor," Witold almost whines.

"Is Matka her name?" I whisper to Luz.

Luz chuckles a little. "No, it's his word for 'mother'. Her name is Gertrude, but I heard it wasn't always Gertrude."

I sigh for a moment. "This place has some strange names."

The woman is still staring at me and I hide behind Luz and Ariela, which apparently makes Gertrude laugh. Gertrude comes toward the crowd and approaches me with a smile. She seems happy to see me. I don't know why.

"Usted es muy bonita," Gertrude greets me, though I have no idea what she is saying.

Ariela can't stop laughing as she watches Gertrude touch my shoulders and examine my appearance. I step back, but she doesn't let go, and I start to feel uncomfortable. I start to wriggle away from her when Witold gets between us, trying to explain something to his mother.

"Hila no puede hablar nuestra idioma, Matka," Witold says. "Ella habla Árabe… y Ebreo."

Luz appears worried by whatever Witold said, yet Gertrude is still smiling. At first, Witold appears tense, but when he sees his mother grinning at me, he calms down. Ariela simply seems confused by the reaction and Diego appears indifferent, if not amused.

"Hila y Ariela son las judias?" Gertrude asks Witold.

I nod and say the one word I'm certain I know in that language. "Si. Judias."

Ariela takes a step closer to me. "What are they saying?"

"Witold is telling his mom that we're Jewish," I reply.

Kaja and Armelle go inside the house, giggling, and Gertrude gives me a strange, curious look. She gazes at me, then at Ariela, then at me again. I assume she is doing this because she has never seen a pair of twins before, so I try to ignore how awkward she is making everything. After she stops staring at my sister and I, she turns to Witold again.

"Por que no invitaste las gemelas a nuestra casa?" Gertrude asks Witold.

"Porque yo creí que ella estaría avergonzado," Witold replies.

Gertrude seems surprised by what Witold says. "Avergonzado? Por que?"

Witold doesn't reply. Instead he suggests something to the rest of the group and says goodbye to his mom. Gertrude sighs, mumbles something I can barely hear, and waves goodbye. Armelle comes out the door again and waves goodbye to all of us.

"Yo jugaré con Kaja," Armelle says. "Adios."

Our groups starts to leave and Diego leads the way out of this part of Carabanchel. Luz and Ariela converse quietly and Witold lags behind to walk beside me, occasionally looking at my hand to see if he can hold it. I keep my hands folded behind my back just to bother him. He doesn't seem particularly irritated by it and simply resorts to striking up a conversation with me.

"You don't think my house is _bad_, do you?" he asks.

"Witold, I've never been inside," I reply.

"It's small inside," he responds. "You won't like it."

I decide to change the subject. "Your Arabic is pretty good. How long have you been learning it?"

Witold smiles and his cheeks turn pink. "More than four years. I went to Adnan's school longer than Luz. But, Hila, you don't think my house is _bad,_ do you?"

I huff. "Why are you asking me that?"

Witold shrugs. "I don't know. It's something I think about a lot, whether or not people would like my house. I wonder if I'll even live in one when I'm older."

"Why?"

He looks around at the neighborhood full of scrawny dogs and dirty kids, places his hand on the back of his neck, and sighs. Even in the Maghreb nations, I didn't encounter a place as dirty as this. I can imagine why he wouldn't want me seeing him living around here.

"I'm learning Arabic because I want to get into trade," Witold admits. "I know things are better in the Maghreb nations, at least when it comes to money."

I think of the time in Alustaa Maghreb when Ariela, Tziporah and I were chased by dogs in a flea market. I think of the time a man kicked out of his inn after learning that we were Jewish and we had to sleep outside. I think of the time my father was accused of a crime he didn't commit and we had to flee to a neighboring town. I look around me and think of the stability our family has now. Things were not better in the Maghreb nations.

"I want to get out of here," Witold confesses. "I don't want to get money from a Fes charity. I don't really want a lot of help. I just want to go somewhere else."

"I like it here," I tell him. "Sure, people like Celestina hate me, but we actually have a temple here. I actually live in one place. It's not fun moving around all the time."

"You didn't have a choice," Witold replies and I decide not to talk about the issue anymore. Instead, I opt to learn more about his religion.

"So, explain Anielasm to me," I say. "I forgot all about it."

At this point, Diego has led us out of the poorest part of Carabanchel and we end up near a mosque. I almost expect some of the people there to take one look at Ariela and I and scowl, but to my surprise, they simply give us a nod before going on with their daily activities.

"There are three different types," Witold explains. "But we all believe that Matcastara is the goddess and that Aniela is her prophet. Aniela lived in a land called Prorokraina, which is east of here. Her language was one called Polski. Most of the time, Eligian Anielasts pray in Polski."

"And the other Anielasts?" I ask him.

"There's Armelle," he continues. "The Arnauden Anielast. They pray in a language she calls Français. Then there is the Clothilden Anielast, which is my mother."

"Gertrude," I reply.

"That is her Anielast name," Witold informs me. "She converted to the faith. Her birth name was Magdalena. Anyway, the Clothilden Anielasts pray in a language they call Deutsch."

We pass by a Fes orphanage and spot Celestina and Eulalia there. I know, or at least I think I know this, that Celestina has a family of her own. Does Eulalia have one, though? I never met or heard of her family, so it's a possibility that Eulalia lives in the orphanage. Either that or both girls are volunteering their time there.

"Look over there," Ariela tells me, pointing at the two girls. "Should we tell Celestina we saw her prostitute sister?"

"Hmm, we could," I reply. "Witold, what did Herminia say to you earlier?"

Witold puts his hands in his pockets and stares in the direction of Celestina. "Herminia wanted to know if we had seen her."

"That's it?" Ariela asks, disappointed that she couldn't get anything more gossip-worthy.

"Dejémosle en paz," Diego tells all of us, nodding toward Celestina. By the way he walks opposite her direction, I assume he wants nothing to do with her right now.

We walk away with him and see El Templo in the distance. I see Dulce Santos, the woman I saw this morning, walking with a sack of coins toward El Templo. A few other people that I recognize from the parade a month ago converse with her, though I'm not sure about what, and she gives the bag to them. They all head toward El Templo and my curiosity peaks. What was the inside of El Templo like?

"Hey, do any of you want to see the inside of El Templo?" I ask the group.

Luz refuses adamantly. "They'll try to tell you to become a Fes when you go in. I tried once. It was terrible."

I try to think of what else to do and my thoughts go to Jumana, who could provide me with information for whatever questions I ask. The rest of the group could do without me, so I decide to tell Ariela that I was going home. Luz asks me if I need to be shown the way home and I refuse. I make sure Witold doesn't notice me leave before I take off to Jumana's house, which is quite a walk from here.

I don't look at much while on my walk, but I notice the strange man with Herminia again and I run before he can see me. I would tell Herminia to run away from the man, but we cannot speak the same language and gestures would be too difficult and too noticeable. I run until I'm out of the strange man's sight and I go back to a slow pace when I reach Luz's house. From there, I try to remember the path to Jumana's and take my time, constantly looking back to make sure I can retrace my steps if I get lost.

I get to Jumana's house safely and knock on the door. It starts to get cold and I wish that Jumana would get to the door sooner. I stand and wait, thinking that maybe Jumana had woken up from a nap or something, and soon enough, Jumana opens the door to greet me.

"Hello, Hila," Jumana says. "Is your sister or cousin with you?"

I shake my head when I notice black embroidery on the scarf that covers her hair. The pattern on it is structured, yet very pretty, and I start to wonder how to make it. Jumana seems to be able to read my mind; I simply have to point to it for her to understand what I want.

Pretty soon, she sets up two stools for us to sit on and two sets of materials for us to work with. I take a seat on one stool without a word and pick up the materials, putting thread through the appropriate needle and wait until Jumana gets herself settled. She looks over and sees my prepared needle, smiling before she carefully instructs me.

"One, when you use the needle, you do a stabbing motion," she says to me. "You go front to back and back to front."

I watch her perform the motion and wait for her instruction before I mimic her. I look at the edges of her scarf and hope to be able to design intricate patterns once I learn this sort of work. Before I have the opportunity to stab the cloth with my needle, Jumana gives me a piece of advice.

"Pick a simple design," she advises me. "First, try a square, then work your way into more complex designs."

I eagerly start my work with a simply square, working so quickly that I forget to watch for my fingers, and I accidentally poke a small hole into my index finger. Immediately, I put the finger in my mouth out of instinct.

"Be careful, Hila," Jumana warns. "Or your fingers will be covered in holes."

I laugh at Jumana's joke and spend most of my day working on this embroidery. Jumana starts to hum an old Arabic song and I absentmindedly sing along. Never before have I found so much peace in one simple act.


	11. Chapter 11

Ariela

Since the day we went to Witold's house, Hila has been spending quite some time at Jumana's. Each time she goes there, she comes back with some cloth with black embroidery on it, and she fixates over every detail of it. Over the course of a week or so, her embroidery improved, and she started to make shirts with complex designs on the tips of sleeves and collars on white shirts. One day, she came home with a bright red vest with an embroidered collar and I immediately wanted it.

"It's my best work," Hila says, holding it up and examining it the next morning. "Maybe Jumana can make another vest for me and I can embroider it."

Everyone else sits together at the table. Luz fumbles with a book that Adnan let her get for Hila yesterday. My mother and Nava pester Tziporah about her business with Chaim, which I find fairly amusing, and Tziporah pretends that she doesn't want to talk about it. Tziporah starts to giggle, which catches everyone's attention, and I start wanting to know what she and Chaim have been doing since her health improved.

"Where did you to go yesterday?" Nava asks Tziporah.

"To his parent's house," Tziporah answers. "Hillel and Talia asked me what it was like in the Maghreb nations. They were fascinated with that."

"And what did you two do?" Nava asks, clearly wanting more interesting information than the actions of her in-laws.

"What do you mean?" Tziporah replies, pretending to be shocked by such a question.

Nava simply laughs. "You are so much like your mother, Tziporah. I remember before she met Ariel, or even your Abba Daniel, there was a boy she really liked who lived close by. She used to sneak out at night to see him!"

"Nava, stop it," our mother playfully begs in much the same way that Tziporah does.

"See, Carmela?" Nava addresses our mom. "You and Tziporah act exactly alike. Back to you and your old lover boy."

Our dad sits with his hand covering his forehead, feeling a mixture of awkwardness and amusement, and Matan pats his back with laughter. Hila sets the vest down on a chair before sitting beside me. We both stare at Tziporah and our mother, who are both blushing, and Nava continues the story of her and the lover.

"Ariela, Hila, I don't know if your Ima told you about this, but before she moved away, she knew this boy that lived close to where Witold lives now. I can't remember if he was one of those atheists or a Fes or what, but your mother _loved_ him."

"Nava, why are you telling us a story about my wife's former lovers?" my dad asks, half-joking.

Nava simply laughs off his question. "What was his name? It was something like… Aleix. They met when we went into town to sell some old stuff. I was still a child, so I thought all of it was stupid, you know."

"Weren't we talking about Tziporah and Chaim?" our mother asks Nava, raising her eyebrows.

"Oh, yes," Nava says. "Back to Tziporah."

Tziporah chuckles. "I preferred hearing about Ima and this Aleix boy."

"Oh, no, no, no, Tziporah," my mom laughs. "Don't try that now."

We all hear a loud knock on the door and turn our heads. Once Matan gets up to answer it, Tziporah, Nava, and my mom return to their conversation about Tziporah and Chaim's current relationship. Luz gives Hila the book while she and I keep looking at who knocked on the door. It turns out to be a man with a scruffy beard and menacing green eyes.

"Hola," says the man. "Me llamo Eloy Hierro y yo vine a su casa porque yo junto Tributos Santos."

"Como Dulce Santos?" Matan asks and I can vaguely recognize the name. "El Tributo Santo es donación o impuesto religioso? Cuando yo pregunté Dulce Santos, ella no supo."

The man just laughs and I assume that Matan either asked a stupid question or made a really funny joke. The look on the man's face makes Matan look hostile, so I assume that Matan was serious and the man just made fun of him without using words. I start to clench my fists and scowl at the man. His eyes may be menacing, but overall, he looks incredibly ridiculous.

"El Tributo Santo es un impuesto religioso," he says. "Si usted no es un Fes, usted paga más."

"Joder!" Matan mutters to himself in frustration. Whatever he says sounds like a swear word, which makes me curious as to what it means. I whisper it to myself and take a mental note to ask Luz later what the Hebrew word for it is.

Matan hands the man some coins and he leaves before Matan sits down with the rest of us. I listen to part of the women's conversation and learn that Tziporah and Chaim have kissed once. Personally, I think Chaim looks very strange and unattractive, but then again, Tziporah has different tastes than I do and I can't remember one time I ever had that sort of liking for a boy. Even when we were younger and our parents would ask what boys we had a crush on, I could never explain things like Tziporah and Hila did.

"Abba, who was 'Eloy Hierro'?" Luz asks.

"Probably from La Asociación," Matan answers. "Dulce Santos is in it too. First, this La Fe Nueva stuff promises to help the poor, improve our lives, would make the rich take responsibility, and they wouldn't treat anyone differently from one another. Now look, non-Feses have to pay a heavier tax."

My dad half-chuckles. "Did you really expect them to keep their promises?"

"I was _hoping_, Ariel, not _expecting_," Matan rebukes. "After seeing what good the Feses have done for the poor, I was _hoping_ they wouldn't change."

"Maybe they haven't," my mom says. "They're just using methods that every religious government does. A religious government taxing people of a different faith isn't unusual."

Matan sits down, huffing and rubbing his neck much like my own father does. He and Matan seem to share a mind sometimes, which puzzles me a lot, and I wonder if they were long lost brothers. I can tell that my dad is probably thinking the same thing as Matan; this was the start of something worse.

"I talked to the others from the temple," Matan says to his mind-twin. "They had to pay Tributos Santos. They nicknamed the tax Tese. You know what that word means in Espanyol?"

"What?" my dad says, appearing to be expecting a funny joke.

"It's the command saying 'to tighten'. They joke that the Feses are commanding them to tighten themselves up."

My father's lips widen into a smile and a chuckle emerges from his throat. His face goes down and his arms fold in front of him while he laughs and Matan pats his back, as if to help him cough out something. His laughter cheers up Matan, who, for a moment, seems to have forgotten about the Tese tax.

"Let's just hope things don't get worse," my dad says after he sobers up from his laughter. "We finally have a place to call home."

* * *

"Religious tax?" Jumana asks as she fixes some of Hila's embroidering. "That isn't particularly strange."

Shimon Ben-Ari sits with my dad and Matan, playing a weird card game I've never heard of. Each man keeps their cards close to their faces, not allowing anyone else to see what they have. They each ask each other various questions before they reveal and exchange cards. Meanwhile, Nava sorts out which clothes belong to her and which belong to Luz and my mother tries to patch up a hole in my pants. Hila receives her embroidering and continues the pattern, this time on a faded vest. I look over at the bright red one placed haphazardly over a wooden chair and remind myself to try it on later.

"Why?" Hila asks.

"I know in old Muslim empires, the rulers imposed a religious tax on the 'people of the book' called a Jizya. I learned this through stories passed down from my grandparents, who heard it from their ancestors, who must have recorded the information somehow. However they did it, most of it got lost in the Transformation."

"People of the book?" Luz asks. "You mean Jews?"

Jumana slightly nods her head. "Yes, Jews and this other religious group that used to be powerful and populous before the Transformation. The Christians."

My dad hears this and gains sudden interest in this conversation, dropping his set of playing cards.

"The Christians?" he asks. "Which one is that?"

"They believe Jesus is the messiah and the son of God but also God himself," Jumana answers. "That was how it was explained to me. They believe in something called the Trinity."

My dad's eyebrows furrow. "Wait, how can you be someone but also the son of someone? This doesn't make sense!"

Jumana simply giggles. "The Trinity is supposed to be the father, the son, and… something else. I forget."

"I'm still confused," my father says. "They worship a god who is both his own father and his own son and they worship this thing you forgot but is part of a trinity? So it's two gods?"

"No, no, it's one god," Jumana replies. "There is three different parts."

My dad shakes his head. "It sounds like three gods to me."

Jumana gives up and I look over at my mother, who seems amused by my father's annoyance and confusion. My dad goes back to playing cards with Shimon and Matan, Nava finishes sorting laundry, and my mother is done with fixing the whole in my pants. Hila completes the embroidery on the faded vest and presents her work to Jumana, who seems pleased by it. I think the color on the faded vest is ugly and hope that she gives me the red one waiting on the chair. I wait impatiently until I can try it on without people bothering me about it.

"So your mother tells me that Chaim has taken a liking to you, Tziporah," Jumana says.

Tziporah nods. "His parents are nice."

"Of course they are, my husband works with them."

"They seem to like me, which makes Chaim pretty happy. We have a lot in common too. He studies at the temple with Rabbi Alona Spinoza. Maybe we can go into the market tomorrow and trade enough items so we can by meat from the Shokhet and have them over for dinner again."

"Where does the Shokhet live?" Hila asks.

"Near the temple," Tziporah replies. "His name is Idan. He doesn't get a lot of business but he gets enough."

"Only a month and you're in love with him," Nava teases when she sits down by us. "Not even your Ima falls in love that quickly."

Tziporah playfully sneers at Nava before grinning and I assume that she is fantasizing about Chaim. It's hard to believe that not too long ago, she was in such poor health that her stomach couldn't keep her food in. Now, she glows with young love. I can't tell whether to consider it lucky that she healed so quickly or to consider it suspicious. Chances are, she can easily succumb to disease quickly as well.

"Now that I told you about Chaim," Tziporah says. "Why don't we hear about Ima and Aleix?"

"No, no," my mother replies. "We are _not_ doing this again!"

Later that night, I stay up until everyone else has gone to their rooms to retire. Luz helps Hila memorize certain Espanyol words and phrases. As far as I know, Hila has learned the names of body parts, colors, and foods. I almost never spend time studying with her, so I haven't learned even one word of the language. I figure that I have as much time as I need for learning the tongue, as I won't be moving from place to place anymore. In any case, I can simply take Luz around with me if I need a translator at any time.

While Luz and Hila practice Espanyol and Arabic, I try on the red vest with black embroidery. I button it up and realize it fits me perfectly, which makes me want to hide it away from Hila and wear it whenever she isn't around. After a while, I get tired, and I remove the vest to return to my room.

Hila and Luz have separated and Hila lies awake on the mattress. She mutters foreign words and their translations to herself when she notices me at the doorway. Hila barely lifts her head, greeting me with a sorry excuse of a smile.

"How many words do you know?" I ask, though I don't actually care.

"I don't know, twenty, maybe?"

I lie down on the mattress next to her. She makes sure I have at least some of the blanket we share and snuggles close to me, her head on my shoulder. I hug her back and try to fall asleep.

"It's nice here, isn't it?" Hila asks me.

"I'm trying to sleep," I reply.

Her hands squeeze my arms momentarily. "It's nice here."

* * *

I wake up in a fright while it is still dark. It is uncomfortably cold and I realize that Hila mistakenly took up the entire blanket in her sleep, which makes me want to push her off the mattress we share. I sit up and reflect on the nightmare that woke me up, wondering if I should be alarmed by it, and it sends a chill up my spine.

In the dream, I had seen the strange man from the ferry in a strange setting. Behind me had been a dilapidated town with only grey buildings and everyone who lived there looked alike and spoke a strange language. I had been holding his stolen knife in my hands and the strange man simply stared at me with a cynical smile. I had heard a deep chuckle, but I wasn't able to tell where the sound was coming from, yet I knew it belonged to the strange man. The sound seemed to come from all around me.

"Make a deal with me," he had said in my language before switching to another one, which I could somehow understand. "Trade with me."

My hands, which had mysteriously gotten blood all over them, handed the knife to the man. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking no matter what I did and, despite not being cold at all, I had been shivering. The man's smile grew wider and he grabbed the knife from my hands, almost slicing them. I had started to cry.

"That's not enough to pay me," he whispered. "Would you like to make a trade?"

His voice seemed to multiply in a strange way. I would hear that question first coming from his lips, then from my left, then from my right, and the questions seemed to overlap. The voices seemed to get louder and louder until I couldn't bear it and put my bloodied hands over my ears.

"Would you like to make a trade?" I kept hearing. "Would you like to make a trade, would you like to make a trade, a trade, would you like to, a trade, make a trade, would you like to, like to make a trade, would you like, make a, like to make a trade, would you like…"

By that point, I had been sobbing, the blood from my hands now covered my ears and face and the strange man stepped forward. He tipped my chin up with one index finger and breathed on my face, exposing me to the most terrible stench, which stung my eyes. I had suddenly become unaware of anything that was behind me and focused only on his last words, which had come from only one source in the form of a whisper.

"Would you like to make a trade?"

Hila rolls over in her sleep and I lie back down, not wanting to sleep again for fear of seeing that man once more. I sigh and think about what Herminia, Celestina's sister, could possibly be arranging with the strange man. I remember seeing him at the parade over a month ago. I can't help but wonder if he knew that I stole his knife and is somehow after me. From then on, I swear to myself not to go out alone anywhere, lest he corner me while I was vulnerable.

I end up going back to sleep, have no dreams, and wake up later than everyone else. By the time I get to the main eating room, almost everyone is done with their food and there are only a few slices of bread available. I take one and eat it while everyone else cleans up the plates and Luz and Hila decide whether or not they should go to Adnan's today. I forget my promise to myself from the previous night and decide that I want to find Herminia and bring her to Celestina if they haven't seen each other already. They both decide to go to the school and walk out the door, saying goodbye to everyone in the house.

"Are you going with them?" my mother asks.

"Yes," I lie. "I'll see you all later."

I hear my mother talk to Tziporah before I close the door behind me. Luz and Hila make it past a few houses and I go in a different direction, trying not to be seen by them. I figure that Herminia will probably be in the area near where Witold lives and hope that she isn't near that strange man again. I take a shortcut that I found while Hila was at Jumana's house one time and avoid many of the people I would otherwise bump into. I hope that, with this path, I can bypass the houses with the scrawny dogs and find Herminia quickly so I can bring her to Celestina. I'm not sure why I want to bring the two together, but I know it will be entertaining, let alone rewarding.

With a stroke of pure luck, I find Herminia alone and approach her slowly. She glances around before walking in the direction of El Templo while I approach her, keeping on the lookout for the strange man. I remember that she and I do not speak the same language, so I end up passing by her and ignoring her deliberately, which somehow provokes her to come up to me.

"Perdoné," she asks me. "Usted ha visto Celestina?"

I recognize the name and wave to her, indicating that she should follow me. She pauses, looks at me, and I turn around and walk in the direction of Adnan's school through the longer path I avoided earlier. I completely forget about the strange man as I continue on that path and hear Herminia following me. After hearing the barking of the scrawny dogs, I tense up and tell myself to run if either one of them gets close to me, which thankfully does not happen. I almost gag on the smell of the environment and when Herminia and I make it out of there, I take a deep breath of cleaner air.

"Donde esta Celestina?" Herminia asks. I assume she is asking where she is after I led her on a walk that seems to go nowhere.

I try to remember the word for 'house' in her language and fail, which leads me to curse myself for not studying the language with my sister. Instead, I pretend not to hear her question and continue walking to Adnan's house, not caring anymore whether she'd follow me or not. She still walks behind me and I finally arrive with the hope that Celestina is there. Slowly, I open the door and count the students, noticing one is missing and being happy that the missing one is not Celestina.

I walk in casually and take a space on the carpet near Witold, Hila and Luz. Adnan stands by the bookshelf, picking out what to read to the class. After some time, I had grown tired of hearing about the Maker of Deals, which only reminds me of the strange man from the ferry ride, but the younger kids still loved the stories. Yet again, he picks out that book and sits back on the stool, informing us that he will be reading in Arabic. One of these days, I hope he reads in Espanyol so I'm able to tune out what sounds to me like plain blabbering.

"You brought Herminia here?" Luz asks.

"She asked about Celestina," I reply. "What did you want me to do?"

"Those two don't," Hila responds when a noise cuts her off mid-sentence.

"Herminia, por que usted esta aqui?!" Celestina loudly asks as she sees Herminia finally come through the door.

"Yo necesité verte," Herminia responds in a soft, breathy voice.

Celestina huffs and isolates herself in a corner. I can't help but compare their appearances. Celestina's hair is neatly brushed and braided and she is dressed in a mildly tattered long skirt and a white shirt with La Fe Nueva insignia sewn in with red thread, all of which have probably been donated to her. Herminia, on the other hand, has her hair all in one giant knot and her skimpy clothes are torn in several places and have many puddle stains on them. Their resemblance, with their blue eyes and blond hair, despite the differences in attire and neatness, is undeniable.

"Por que usted vino?" Celestina asks, her voice less harsh, but it's clear that she doesn't want her sister here. "Por que usted necesitó verme?

Herminia shrugs at this point and rubs her neck behind her terribly knotted hair. For a moment, Celestina looks at Herminia with a look other than that of scorn and her shoulders don't stand as straight as they normally do. Her hands hold each other uneasily in front of her torso, she breathes in deeply, and she glances at the floor.

"Cómo están Mamá y Papá?" Herminia asks and I recognize the two words that would refer to one's parents.

Celestina shrugs. For a moment, Herminia looks hopeful. She takes a careful step forward and, to my surprise, Celestina doesn't recoil in disgust. I scoot over to ask Luz what is going on.

"What did Herminia just ask?" I whisper.

"She asked about her parents," Luz replies. "How much do you want to bet that Celestina is going to try to get her to join El Templo?"

"What money do I have to bet with?" I reply.

Luz simply giggles. Herminia stares at the insignia sewn into Celestina's shirt and sighs. Celestina looks down at the insignia and back at her, first with a skeptical look, then a smile. Luz nudges me with her elbow, as if she was indicating that she was right all along. I nudge her back in annoyance.

"Tu irás a El Templo?" Celestina asks Herminia.

"Told you," Luz whispers to me. "And she's using the word 'tu' instead of 'usted'."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I reply.

Luz and I observe Celestina and Herminia and Hila sits behind us. I assume that she can infer much more from this scene than I can and expect her to put in her input in five, four, three…

"It means Celestina is making their relationship more personal."

Disregard that countdown.

"Quizá," Herminia replies. "Yo necesitaré hacer algo."

Herminia promptly leaves and Celestina does not look angry. Now that the scene is over, we look back at Adnan, who must have been listening in on the conversation the entire time but must have chosen not to interfere. I sort of wish that Celestina and Herminia had a more angry confrontation with one another, simply for the sake of my amusement, and that Celestina would isolate herself in a corner after that. However, it seems strangely peaceful.

Eulalia and Celestina grin at each other and Celestina hugs her. If Luz was right about Celestina asking Herminia to join El Templo, then Herminia must have agreed to it just now, which would explain Celestina's current happiness. I have no clue why Herminia would even consider going to join a faith she doesn't believe in. Whatever the reason Herminia had to consider this option, it made Celestina very happy.

"Now," Adnan announces. "Onto yet another story of the Maker of Deals."

"Which one is this?" Ihsan asks.

Adnan licks his finger before turning a page. "This one is about the Maker of Deals and the leaders of two nations bonded so close together, yet so far apart."

He translates a story about the Maker of Deals and two leaders named President Jonah Adair and Queen Lyric Savile. Jonah was the leader of a nation across the great sea while Lyric was the ruler of a large island up north. The two wanted to strengthen their nations and their alliance with one another, so they made a deal with the demonic being I heard about so many times. Their nations strengthened, but the demonic being made them greedy and selfish, so they had only strengthened themselves by taking away resources from other nations. Adnan reveals that the two leaders had traded away their own compassion for strength and wealth, which in the end was very costly to them. The two nations got into a deeply embittered rivalry, which eventually escalated into war, and they brought most of the developed nations down with them.

"Interesting story," Witold says in Arabic.

I shrug and ignore him while Hila engages with him in conversation. I even ignore Luz and decide to watch Celestina and Eulalia talk to each other for a while, despite the language barrier. Celestina seems less annoyed by our general presence and more content with herself. At some point, Celestina breathes in deeply so her chest seems broader and the La Fe Nueva insignia displays itself proudly. Eulalia looks at her and giggles before she hugs her. For a moment, Celestina isn't that much of a bitch.


End file.
